LED OFF RACECOURSE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22008, 15 January 1935, Page 9

LED OFF RACECOURSE

RUFUS NAYLOR'S CASE £IO,OOO DAMAGES CLAIM (Received January 14, 5.5 p.m.) SYDNEY, Jan. 14 Rufus Naylor was escorted from the Canterbury Park racecourse on Saturday by members of the racecourse detective staff after a conversation with the chairman of directors. Recently Naylor succeeded in an appeal to the Full Court which ruled that the Australian Jockey Club was not entitled to exclude him from the Randwick course. Naylor subsequently attended races at Randwick and other metropolitan courses. A solicitor to-day on behalf of Naylor issued a writ claiming £IO,OOO damages from the Canterbury Park Racing Company, Limited.

In the Equity Court, Sydney, on May 7 Mr. Justice Long-lnnes gave judgment in the case of Rufus Navlor against the Australian Jockey Club. Navlor was disqualified by the club on "the ground that he gave false or misleading evidence iit connection with the ownership of a horse named Movado, which had been disqualified for not doing its best. Naylor applied for an interim injunction to restrain the: club committee from further proceeding on its decision. The application was granted, and Naylor later sought a continuation of .the injunction. The Judge held that Navlor's disqualification was The club had no jurisdiction. Naylor must be regarded as an ordinary member of the public entitled to go upon the Randwick racecourse. The club had contended that Naylor was not an ordinary member of the public, but was a person plying a trade and that plaintiff's character was such that he might, under the club's rules, be excluded from admission. On May 31 Mr. Justice Street, m the Equity Court, dismissed Navlor's further application for an interim injunction to restrain the club from acting under its by-law No. 9, which empowers the club to exclude from its racecourse persons within its discretion deemed to be undesirable. Following upon this decision Naylor appealed. The Full Bench of the Supreme Court (Mr. Justice Harvey dissenting) on December 20 allowed the appeal and dismissed the appeal by the club against Naylor. This meant that Naylor had the right to enter the Randwick racecourse from the first day of the ensuing law term. Mr. Justice Davidson declared that the club's hv-law was too widely expressed. Any person might he held to be not desirable for personal, or any, reasons, and the club's committee would not be bound to state more than its general opinion as to undesirability.