SUPREME COURT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIX, Issue 65, 14 February 1929, Page 7

SUPREME COURT.

OWNERSHIP, OF £62. MOTION FOR COURT ORDER. His Honour Mr Justice Smith was engaged in the Supreme Court this morning investigating matters in connection with the estate af Hugh H. Andrew, a bankrupt. At the last quarterly session of the Court, the Deputy Official Assignee had alleged that certain moneys in the possession of tho wife were the property of the husband. The judge had accepted this view as to a sum of £62 and ordered that Mrs Kathleen Andrew pay this sum to the Official Assignee. In the Court this morning Mrs Kathleen Andrew brought a motion to set aside the previous order calling upon her to pay the money. After hearing argument the judge refused to upset the previous order. Mr McGregor represented the plaintiff and Mr Onglcy represented the official assignee, Mr C. E. Dempsy. No evidence was called, the case being argued on the affidavits already filed. . ,

At the outset His Honour raised the question of the Court’s jurisdiction to review the order. Mr McGregor submitted that the previous order was a judge’s order, while the order now sought was a Court order, a proceeding by which the former order might be reviewed. Consequently the present motion was in order. His Honour accordingly allowed the proceedings to continue and legal argument followed as to the right of ownership of the £62 involved. In outlining the facts Mr McGregor stated that in September, 1927, bankrupt sold a property at Sanson for £296. Of this sum, part was paid into his own banking account and part into the wife’s account in the Post Office Savings Bank. About tills time £65 or £7O worth of timber was bought. The evidence showed that £62 stayed in the wife’s account for some months and was withdrawn bv the wife and handed to the husband who bought the timber. Bankrupt had £l3O in notes which he carried for three or four months, spending the money on living expenses. The timber bought was put into the wife’s house. The cost of the timber was the amount involved in the action. His Honour in giving judgment said that the law seemed to be clear on the subject—if the mon6y were in the hands of the wife as agent or trustee for her husband, then the money had to be accounted for to the husband s Pilate The question to be decided oil the documents before the Court was whether the husband did or did not pay between £6O or £7O toward's the wife’s house. To His Honour’s mind the whole circumstances, were highly suspicious' and in the circumstances he thought that the husband had a right to the money that went into the building of the house. The present motion would be dismissed and the previous one would stand with the slight amendment that the older would be against the separate estate of the wife and not against her personally Costs £5 5s were allowed the Deputy Official Assignee.