COURT OF APPEAL.

Lyttelton Times, Volume CXIII, Issue 13712, 1 April 1905, Page 3

COURT OF APPEAL.

[Per Press Association.] WELLINGTON, March 31. The Appeal Court delivered judgment to-day in the case of Jillett v. the Commissioner of Stamps. The Court hold that the land left by the will of a Native in trust for sale was not subject to Native Land duty.* This was a case stated for the opinion of the Supreme Court, in which the Chief Justice had decided that where a half-castc Native had left his land by will to his wife and son as trustees for sale, the lands were not subject to 10 per cent duty under the Stamp Act Amendment Act, 1885, section 17, on lands devised in fee, so as to rest for the first time in a person other than a Native. By the will the proceeds of the sale were given to the wife and children. The wife was a European and the children are persons other than Natives within the meaning of. the Act. ■ Judgment was given in the case King v. Registrar-General of Land, which was argued on March 23. It is a very important case under the Land Transfer Acts, and was removed for argument into the Court of Appeal, which decided that where a certificate of title, in stating the area of land comprised therein, made a largo error, which a surveyor could have easily detected by a mere inspection of the plan, yet the assurance fund was not liable in damages to make good the loss incurred by the purchaser, of £207-1, on buying at a price per acre. In this case the Crown having been the purchaser, the question was really only as between two •Departments of the State, but an important principle was laid down. A test case under the Shop and Shop Assistants Act, Crown v. Tanner, was argued, and the Court reserved judgment. The Court quashed the conviction of Austin, of Wellington, convicted of supplying a certain drug to a woman, on the ground that the drug did not come within the definition of a noxious thing. The case was argued on March 23.