APPEAL COURT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 9 April 1924, Page 5

APPEAL COURT

THE HARNETT CASE

(By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.)

LONDON, April 8.

Attorney-General Hastings, opening the. appea 1 proceedings on behalf of Bond, declared that if the judgment stood no one would ever again take the risk of certifying a man was a lunatic and the place would be flooded with men who ought to be in an asylum. Bond saw Harnett only once, yet the Court mulcted him in damages as responsible for Harnett’s detention. The chief grounds of appeal were that the verdict was against the weight of evidence, the Judge’s direction to the jury, and that the damages were excessive. Furthermore, the damages were not recoverable by law as being too remote.

Mr Hastings quoted extracts from the evidence bearing on Harnett’s behaviour in 1912, chiefly indictments in which 'Christ’s name was mentioned. One. entry in Harnett’s diary read, “Marie Lloyd Modesty, 67,000 tons per minute.”

Mr Mathews, for Harnett, explained that the entry referred to the how of the Amazon.

Mr Hastings said Bond could not make head or tail of Harnett’s conversation, and came to the conclusion that Adam should again see Harnett. For that decision he had been ordered to pay £25,000 as damages. He argued that Bond should not be held responsible for all that happened in asylums. He contended that the evidence was over, whelming that Harnett was insane in 1912. The hearing was adjourned.