BLUE DENIM

New Zealand Times, Volume XLIX, Issue 11246, 26 June 1922, Page 8

BLUE DENIM

DUNEDIN FIRM CONCERNED APPEAL AGAINST MAGISTRATE’S) RULING. SUPREME COURT CASE. Im an appeal rase beard by His Honour Mr Justice Hoskiug in tho Supremo Court, the point in dispute wiifi whether or not a contract could bo >aid to be terminated by tho .statenuui: of one of the parties to ifc that he did not intend to carry on with it any further. The ease cam© up from the Magistrate's Court as an appeal against the decision of Mr Page, S.M. Mr (*. G. White appeared for the appellants, Messrs it. \V. Cameron and Co., merchants, of New York, with brandies ia the Dominion, and Mr G. G. Watson for tho respondents, Messrs A. Ados and .Son, tsoft goods merchants. of Dunedin. PLAINTIFFS* CLAIMS. In tho lower court the plaintiffs sued the defendants for £199 17s lOd, being tho difference between the price at which a quantity of blue denim was sold to the defendants and the price it. realised at resale. It was alleged that on September 17th last plaintiffs, in a letter, accepted the defendants’ offer for the denim, and a contract was then entered into on September 2Mh. the exchange value of tho £ being taken at 4.80. tho difference, it any, to be afterwards adjusted. In reply to defendants’ letter of November sth. the plaintiffs wrote on November Stfh, stating that it was impossible for them to cancel the order, and insisting that defendants establish a proper credit. To this defendant replied that, as they could not possibly rr:v;;)-v v Tli the r'-q -2. \bev lonsidercd xlri i-„hu in- •ta ii'-elieci. The denim ‘ 11 • 1 1 STATEMENT OF DEFENCE. In their statement of defence, the defendants contended that there was no concluded contract; that in certain respects the contract- (.if any) had not been complied with; and that- they were within their legal lights in considering the contract terminated, because of the plaintiffs iutuVting on certain financial arrangements being made, in default of which they would suspend tho shipment of the goods. THE MAGISTRATE’S RULING. The magistrate, in tho lower court, held that the request of the plaintiffs went beyond the provisions set out in the contract, and that the defendants were not obliged to comply with that request. He did not think that the making of the* request alone would have justified the defendants in repudiating the contract; but the plaintiffs had gone further. They had told defendants that not only would they suspend shipment, but they would store the goods at defendants' expense, which, held the magistrate, was tantamount to a definite instruction that plaintiffs had no intention to carry out the terms of tho contract except upon a condition which he held they had no right to insist upon. The magistrate maintained that, as it was a. woll-establish-c-d condition that, if one party to a contract intimated that ho was no longer bound by its terms, then, the other party also was entitled .to treat the contract as ended; for these reasons the defendants, when they received that letter of November Bth, were entitled to treat the contract as terminated, a step which they took in a letter to nlaintiffs dated November 10th. ' After hearing tho whole of the legal argument, H]is Honour reserved decision.