TULLAMORE MINE CASE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22195, 23 August 1935, Page 8

TULLAMORE MINE CASE

SUIT FOR DAMAGES PLAINTIFFS LOSE CASE JURY'S MAJORITY" VERDICT After having been before the Supreme Court in Sydney for 16 days, the hearing was concluded recently of the action in which Tullamore Gold Development No Liability, sued Walter Francis Medcalf and his wife, Kathleen Medcalf, to recover damages, on the ground that the plaintiffs were induced to buy the Tullamore mine by false representa. tions. The jury, after a retirement of over six hours, returned a majority verdict for defendants. A stay of p r( J. ceedings was granted. Among the misrepresentations alleged to have been made by the defendant, W. F. Medcalf, to the plaintiffs, was the following:—That the samples of ore which VV. F. -Medcalf h;id forwarded to the plaintiff company (1) were truly representative of the gold "contents of the ore in the mine; (2) were true authentic, representative, and correct samples taken from the working of the mine; (3) had been taken by \V. £ Medcalf personally; and (4) showed that the mine was a very valuable goldmining proposition. The whole of the allegations were denied by the defendants. "That is a dry and arid outline of what in real fact is one crowded hour of glorious life of the Tullamore mine" said Mr. Justice Street, having recited in his summing up the sequence of events as tolil to tlie Court. " There seems little doubt upon the evidence that the Tullamore mine, in June, 1934 was ascertained to he, for all commercial purposes, a worthless mine," said His. Honor. "it is suggested that other methods of sampling might have been used earlier. Whether or not there should have been a bigger crushing will probably appear to be a mater of little or no moment. " The real question is: Were these samples tampered with? It is suggested that there may have been no dishonesty in the case anywhere. If so and if you come to that conclusion, that is an end of the matter. But, looking through the facts as you heard them detailed, you will ask yourselves whether you can come to the conclusion that the facta could be otherwise than that somebody interfered with the samples. You will consider to whose interest it was and who benefited by this arrangement," His Honor said a good deal had been said about a "circumstantial" case, and it had been suggested that the case against the defendants rested only on circumstantial evidence. He asked the jury not to he led away by terms. All evidence was in one sense circumstantial. It was erroneous to conclude that direct evidence was necessarily more conclusive than circumstantial evidence.