A £60,000 LAW SUIT.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVII, Issue 14531, 19 November 1910, Page 2 (Supplement)

A £60,000 LAW SUIT.

BTILL RUNNING.

" The everlasting case," or, to give it its proper title, Wyler and others v. Lewis and others, is by no means done with yet. It was down for hearing in the House of Lords on October 18, when it would enter upon another lengthy course. It was in tho spring of 1908 that the case came before Mr. Justice Phillimorc and a jury in the Divisional Court. Before this, however, there had been a considerable amount of litigation. The action arose out of some concessions in Portuguese East Africa, about which two rival groups of financiers are disputing.

In the Divisional Court the case lasted no fewer than 33 days. After 14 days a juror dropped out through illness, and the hearing went on without him. Then one day the judge himself was indisposed, and everybody had to take a holiday. The principal plaintiff, Mr. Isidore Wyler, was in the witness-box for 11 days. Considerable time was taken up by the evidence of a number of Portuguese witnesses, most of whom required an interpreter. In the result the plaintiffs were awarded damages to the amount of £65,472.

The case was then taken to the Court of Appeal, where the finding of the jury was reversed. Here the proceedings lasted 18 days. The three judges who heard the appeal each occupied over an hour in delivering his judgment. At the close it was intimated that the case would be carried to the House of Lords. Up till then the action, it was estimated, had cost about £60,000. Some new counsel will figure in the case Since Sir Rufus Isaacs led for the plaintiffs he has become Solicitor-General, and Mr. Upjohn, K.C., takes over his brief. Sir Edward Carson again appears on behalf of the defendants (now the respondents), but ho will lack the assistance of Mr. Montague Lush, who has been elevated to tho Bench.