DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

Hawera Star, Volume LIII, 9 March 1934, Page 5

DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

ALLEGED WRONGFUL DISMISSAL DEBENTURE) SALES DISPUTE AafluciAtlUii.j WELLINGTON, Alarch 7. Judgment wa. s given by Air E. Page, S.M., yester-day in the case pf Cyril Sydney Brice, merchant, against V. B. Alclnnes and Go., Ltd., sharebrokers. Brice claimed £3OO for alleged wrongful dismissal. The decision was against him and £24 paid into the -court by the defendants wa.s returned to them. At the hearing evidence was given, that Brice undertook to sell debentures put on the market by the Investment Executive Trust of New Zealand, for whom the defendants' were sole brokers, but, learning that the auditor had resigned and later one of the directors, he sought explanations, but the. replies did not satisfy him and he gave notice. He could not sell the debentures until his questions were satisfactorily answered. Negotiations ended when he received notice that his services were terminated.

Mr Page said that in his view the case was disposed of on the facts'. Plaintiff was told that lie was engaged on a weekly basis and h© (Air Page) thought the proper interpretation of this was that he was liable to be dismissed on a- week’s notice. Air Page entertained no doubt that plaintiff was actuated by the highest motives in refusing to sell the debentures, but as a matter of law Air Page thought that plaintiff was not entitled to refuse to go on with the sale of the debentures he _ had been engaged to sell, and when his services for that reason were dispensed with to succeed in an action for damages for wrongful dismissal.

If a. servant did not approve of the wares his master vended it was open to him to leave- his employ. He could not, Air Page thought, refuse to go on with the work and at the same time recover damages for dismissal consequent on such refusal. Plaintiff’s refusal amounted, in the magistrate’s opinion, to repudiation of the contract of services and justified defendants in putting an end to it.