APPEAL IN A RENT CASE.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1367, 12 May 1898, Page 29

APPEAL IN A RENT CASE.

A full Bench sat in the Court of Appeal on Thursday to hear the case " John Chute Ellis, appellant, and John Batger and William Menzies, respondents." Mr Sim was for the 'appellant, and Mr Woodhouse, with him Mr H. Featherston Johnston, for the respondents. In the Magistrate's Court, Invercargill, John Batger, of Inveroargill, auctioneer, and William Menzies, of Kawarau, Queenstown, station managar, trading in partnership as sheepfarmers, at Otahu, sued John Chute Ellis, of Inveroargill, sbeepfarmer, for .£lls. The statement of claim set out that on the26bh February. 1894, the defendant was indebted to Elizabeth Young, of 18 Gloucester Square, Hyde Park, London, in the sum of .£lls for rent of grazing sheep on Otahu station, as follows :—From the 17th June to the 26th September, 1893, 16 weeks at .£5, £BO ; from the Ist; November to the 19th December, 1893, seven weeks at £5, .£35 ; total, £lls. Mr Poynton, S.M., gave judgment for the plaintiff*?. An appeal to the Supreme Court as to the <£Bo was dismissed by Mr Justice Williams. Mr Sim now said that Mrs Young was the owner of a station in Southland known as Otahu, and the appellant, the defendant below, was- grazing sheep on it-. Rent became due from time to tinv*. Mrs Young was represented in New Zealand by Messrs jKenyon and liosking, of Dunedin, who in turn employed the New Zealand Loan and Mercantile Agency Company to collect the rent. The company was at the same time financing Ellis, and bills due by him to the company became due from time to time. There was an arrangement,by which Ellis paid 15 per cent, of the amounb of the bills as they became due, and gave promissory notes for the balance. The £BO in dispute was made up of two sums of £ls and £65. So far as the .£ls wa3 concerned the appellant's case was that the proceeds of sheep which the company had in hand reduced the debit to £l2 143 Bd. In regard to the .£65 the appellant said that sheep were sent in specifically to be sold to pay that amount and 15 per cent, of a bill. There was subsequently a reversal of book entries by the compauy. Mr Sim concluded by submitting that the appeal should be allowed as to the £65 and as to .£2 5s 4d of the £ls. Argument took place as to whether the payment of rent; or of 15 per cent, of bills due was the first call on the proceeds of the sheep sold. The Court expressed the opinion that they would like to see Kenyon and Hoskins' account in order to ascertain the real relation of the parties; but reserved the question of the admissibility of the evidence. The case was ordered to stand over in the meantime.