A DISPUTED CONTRACT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11200, 21 October 1899, Page 5

A DISPUTED CONTRACT.

[BY TELEGRAPH.—PRESS association.] Vv Ellington, Friday. The case of Oetzes and Gerritsen v. the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company was heard in the Court oi Appeal this afternoon; A special case was stated by the parties, and removed by consent into the Court of Appeal for argument. The plaintiffs carry on business in New Zealand and London as dealers in colonial produce, and in September of last year, negotiations took place between them and the defendant company for the sale to them by the defendant company, as agents of the Ballance Dairy Factory, of the output of butter from that factory from September, 1898, up to the end of February, 1899. Correspondence by letter and telegram took place between the parties, and they acted on the assumption that there was concluded a contract for the sole purchase of the output of the dairy factory in question, and the plaintiff firm resold in England on that assumption. The Ballance Factory, however, repudiated the authority of the defendant company to sell on its behalf, and the defendant company was therefore unable to carry out the contract. The plaintiff firm is now suing the defendant company for damages, and the defendant company sets up the defence that the correspondence does not show that they concluded the contract in writing, and that the company therefore is not bound. A special case was stated for the purpose of ascertaining the opinion of the Court on this point. The Court held unanimously that there was a concluded and binding contract, and answered the question in favour of the nlaintiris, with costs. The case will have to so to trial on other points. Mr. Findlay appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mr. Treadwell for the defendant company.