ALLEGED PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 13049, 14 December 1905, Page 5

ALLEGED PROFESSIONAL MISCONDUCT.

CHARGE AGAINST A SOLICITOR, [BY telegraph.— ASSOCIATION.] • Dunedin, Wednesday. The Supreme Court was engaged to-day in a case in which application was made to make absolute a rule nisi calling on F. Z. Moore to show cause why lie should not be struck off the roll of solicitors, or why lie should not be suspended from practice on the grounds of alleged professional misconduct. Mr. W. C. Macgrogor, who appeared for Moore, said it was difficult to find out what the charges were. What he gathered was that Moore took proceedings against Mark Rogers, coal merchant, on judgment summons, without authority, and that ho continued proceedings after the withdrawal of any implied authority. Moore had been engaged to collect certain overdue calls to the Prince Arthur Dredging Company, amongst others from Rogers. He endeavoured to enforce payment by attachment order, but liability was evaded. Matters drifted on, the company went into liquidation, the assets were sold to a new company, and a liquidator appointed. On the strength of previous instructions, a judgment summons had been taken out against Rogers, and it was the latter who went to the Law Society. Mr. Macgregor, in the course of his address, contended (1) that F. Z. Moore had nothing to do with the issue of the summons, but simply signed the papers placed before him by the clerks in the ordinary routine of office business (2) that he had to rely on his clerk for instructions from the liquidators; (3) that Moore genuinely believed in good faith that he was acting under instructions from Mr. McOracken, the liquidator. He thought it monstrous that a man should be brought before the Court-and held up to public obloquy on a penal charge because a defaulting defendant had refused, owing to a technicality in connection with the proceedings, to pay a just debt. Mr. A. S. Adams having been heard on behalf of the Law Society, Mr. Justice Williams said he would give a written decision.