“A TRUMPERY CASE”

New Zealand Times, Volume LII, Issue 12250, 23 September 1925, Page 4

“A TRUMPERY CASE”

DISPUTE OVER SHEEP A BONA FIDE MISTAKE. Per Frees Association. HAMILTON, September 22. A dispute over the ownership of threesheep occupied the Supreme CouTt, with Mr Justice Herdman on the bench, and ended in a dismissal m which Hl3 Honour declared' that the case should never have come before the court. Ronald Charles Tapp, butcher, of Pukemiro, and Norman Leslie Tapp, farmer, or Te Akau, sued Harold Wilson, farmer, of Waingaro, for the recovery of £4 10s, the value of three sheep, £3-fist the value of lambs, and £3 10s, the value of wool clips, and for £IOO general damages. Upwards of twenty witnesses were in attendance. After the evidence had proceeded for some time, His Honour remarked that the case was a very trumpery one to bring before the Supreme Court and ha did not think it right that he should be asked to sit a couple of days in order to determine the ownership of three sheep Counsel for the defendant stated that the ease was not trumpery, as the plaintiffs, until the day of the hearing, had asserted that the defendant had stolen the sheep, and the matter was a serious one for Wilson. The allegations of criminality had now been withdrawn. A Government stock inspector stated that it often happened that people bought sheep from a distance which had earmarks- similar to those ot neighbours. He produced earmarks of five farmers in the Waikato which corresponded in every respect. His Honour gave judgment for the defendant, with costs. It was a question of a bona fide mistake, he said, and the whole proceedings were misconceived, and should never have been brought on the evidence heard-