IMPORTANT TO NEWSPAPERS.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume VII, Issue 1306, 13 May 1886, Page 2

IMPORTANT TO NEWSPAPERS.

+ In the R.M. Court on Wednesday was heard the case ol the proprietors of the Star v. R. H. Bartlett, of Auckland. A man named Waters had been acting as agent for defendant, the well-known photographer and artist of Auckland, and had caused advertisements to be inserted announcing that he was in the district, and was prepared to take orders for painted photographs. Waters got into trouble, and Bartlett sent down another agent, who advertised that "Waters was no longer Bartlett's agent. The account for the advertisements ordered by Waters was refused payment by Bartlett, who ■ alleged that Waters had no authority to pledge his credit. Hence the action. Mr. Caplen appeared for plaintiffs ; Mr. Barton for defeudaut. The main points relied on for the defence appeared to be that the agreement between Bartlett and Waters was that the latter should receive commission upon orders, but should pay all expenses himself; and that advertising was by no means necessiry in this case. Such agreement had not, however, been made known to plaintiffs. In giving judgment the R.M. (Mr. Wray) said that the principal difficulty wlricli had presented itself to him had been to decide whether the credit had been given exclusively to Waters or not, owing to the manner in which the claim 1 had been debited to Waters in tbe day 1 book and to Bartlett in the ledger. From 1 the evidence of Mr. Innes and of Mr. Epps it appeared, however, to be one of those cases in which either priucipal or agent was liable. Another thing which led to that view was the fact that by the acts of the defendant himself he had taken full advantage of the acts of his agent, for after f.he misfortunes of Waters, Bartlett took full advantage of Waters' acts by means of his new agent, who came down and completed on Bartlett's behalf the orders which people had left with Waters. He considered the defendant liable on the facts. As fco the law points raised, it was clearly within the scope of Waters' powers to pledge Bartlett's credit in this way. He was obliged to advertise, and the plaintiffs were justified in believing that he had authority from Bartlett to do it, although we knew, by evidence taken by commission in Auckland, that he really had no such authority. Judgment would be for plaintiffs for the amount claimed, £11 ss, ' with costs, £2 18s.