APPEAL COURT.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVII, 5 July 1928, Page 7

APPEAL COURT.

CLAIM FOR COMMISSION

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, July 4. The Appeal Court (Judges Bead, Ostler, Smith and Blair) is hearing the case or J. M. Samson, of Dunedin, auctioneer, v. White Star Brewery .Co., an appeal irom a. decision of tVlr. Justice Sim in April last. The facts are that the appellant was employed by two directors of the respondent company to find a. purchaser lor a sub-lease of the Junction Hotel, I Bangiora. Samson duly found a purchaser, and it was agreed that £25 should he paid to him as commission. His appointment, however, was not in writing, and the directors of tlie respondent company subsequently repudiated their promise to pay r such commission. Action was brought in the Supreme Court last April to obtain the commission, and the respondent company, relying on section 30 of the Land Agents Act of 1921-22, which provides that all appointments of land agents must be in writing, were successful in their defence and the appellant was nonstiited. In the course of his judgment Mr. Justice Sim commented severely upon the action of the two directors of the company Mr. A. T. Donnelly appeared for the appellant, and Mr. F. D. Sargent for the respondent.

Mr Donnelly contended that Section 30 c.f the. Land Agents’ Act did' not make, contract lor a. land agency not in writing unlawful, but merely barred the agents.’ right to. .sue, on the. contract; that the absence of a written authority might'be. waved by a principal’;; that the principal was precluded from >»-t----ting up the Statute when lie agreed not to set .it up as a defence., or where the general principle of estoppel applied ; that, the Court was. entitled to apply to the provisions' of the band Agents’ Act the same principles as were applied bv Courts o.f Equity to the Statute of Frauds in oirder to previa nt the Statute from being made the instrument of fraud which was far from 'the intention cf the TyegiiS'kitwre. Having ‘heard argument- along tlnewc lines, tlie Court adjourned. On yrsumiiig the Court- stated that it did not desire to hear Mr'Sargent, counsel for rcitipondont. The utinea 1 was d.istni««od with costs on the .’©west ns from-, a- distance.