“RUS IN URBE.”

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIII, Issue 1703, 17 December 1919, Page 5

“RUS IN URBE.”

_ t FARMER AND FRUITGROWER AT I LAW. , i A civil dispute between a fruitgrower and a farmer involving numerous grounds of claim and counter-claim occupied the attention of Mr J. L. Stout, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday morning. The case was that in which Charles Henry Pickering, fruitgrower, claimed from Johnston Walton, farmer, the sum of £2B 10s for 19 weeks’ rSnt of an area of land on Boundary road and the buildings thereon. As a further cause of action the plaintiff claimed the return of a sot of disc narrows wrongfully detained by the defendant, in the alternative their value £B, and £5 damages for their detention. The defendant then set up a counter-claim for £SO 16s, made up of the following items: i Overpayment of rent made by defendant to plaintiff during the period January 19, 1916 to January 19, 1918, £4; grazing a , grey mate for the plaintiff for five years, £26; two service fees to plaintiff’s cow, £2; grazing plaintiff’s cow for 3£ years, £9 2s; trimming hedges, six days at 12s per‘day, £3 12s; hire of horse and cart for one week carting water, etc., for a traction engine, £6. , , Mr J. B. Wither appeared for the plaintiff and Mr W. L. Fitzherbert for the defendant. Defendant admitted his liability on the of the counter-claim, plaintiff stated that he and the defendant had been on friendly terms, and that he had been allowed the use of the stock in return for their grazing. The item of over-payment of rent was money which had been added on to the rental payments as recognition of services rendered. Ho admitted the service of the cow, but stated that no agreement of payment had boc;i entered into; 1 similarly with tho hedge trimming, it had 1 beep done on a reciprocal friendly footing. His Worship said that it was one of the ’ usual claims that result from people who E have been on friendly terms having a row. k In his opinion judgment would have to be for tho plaintiff on tho whole of tho coun-ter-claim, which His Worship entered ac- ’ cordingly. Tho_ claims should have been > entered at the time if the defendant had considered the plaintiff to be under a financial obligation, instead of having been f allowed to lapse for five years. The scry vice of the cow on two occasions should o have been charged for at the time. The r same applied to the trimming of the « ViodfrM and tho various, other items. As s lor the over-payment of rent, he considered 0 hat it under the c.r----1 cumstancea, that a mistake had _bcen made^ s The whole thing was an effort toi put m ;- n counter-claim against a claim which the 0 defendant, Walton, knew that ho would 1 have to pay. ,s 1 -—=—=============