CARRYING COMPANY'S CLAIM

NZ Truth, Issue 827, 17 September 1921, Page 6

CARRYING COMPANY'S CLAIM

Ex-straw-dinary and Eiorbit-ant Expenses

N.Z. EXPRESS COMPANY SUES

/V CLIENT.

Bench Beats Down the Bill.

(From "Truth's" Christchurch Rep.)

Art extraordinary charge for the* removal of what was described as a hatful of furniture, was made against John O'Neill, when he had to shift to the Empire City from the Holy City 1 last November. He bad a flatful of sticks m a small city flat, comprising 25 parcels m all, which he valued at £60, and instead of giving them away, or selling them, he was foolish enough to arrange with a carrying company, the New Zealand. Express Company, to cart them to Wellington. Their bill nearly gave him a lit. It did not quite amount to the value of the furniture, but b"* the time lawyers* fees and etceteras incidental to fighting the carriers m court are , fixed up, he w}ll see that there is nothing m shifting furniture from one centre to another, unless, of course, the goods were keepsakes, and had a sentimental as well as a commercial value. He offered to give the Express Company £30 to cry quits, but this would not satisfy them, and Magistrate McCarthy was asked to settle their differences. Their little bill WAS. ONLY £46 ODD.. Lawyer Murphy, who appeared for the Company, called their forwarding clerk, Walter Charles ' Lake, who took the job on of shifting O'Neill's household goods from the Rinks Taxis buildings to the •store-rooms, a dis-' ■tance of half a mile. They were packed at the store-room. No estimate of the cost was asked for or given. A man went round and brought some of the stuff away — then another man went and brought the rest of it. Witness made up a little bill, which contained quite a curious lot of items, including charges for straw, canvas, nails and wire. He had arranged with O'Neill to have the goods insured against loss at sea, damage by fire and the Act of Providence, which ran away with a modest £2 15s Od. It was necessary to store the stuff before it was packed, and the use of the store added 15s to the little bill, which gradually amounted to £46 3s lOd. Witness regarded the charge for storage and m fact all the other little charges •which anade up the lot as fair and reasonable — m the circumstances. Another little item of 10s 6d was for making out the consignment note. Lawyer Thomas suggested this should have been only 6s 8d at most, but witness was of opinion that iff the carriers had charged on the legal scale, it would have been a guinea. The firm charged only 3s an hour for packing.

Mr. Thomas : By the way, you WERE NOT MOVING WARNER'S

HOTEJI, — or anything like that,, were you ? — Oh no ! * ■ Witness himself did not see the handful of furniture, but thought something like £50 was a reasonable thing to charge for removing-- it to Wellington, considering / all the circumstances. A certain amount of straw was used, m packing goods. They paid 3s a bale for straw.

Defeneiant's lawyer suggested that

i ' ■ '■ ■ ""V the Company was "had" for the straw, bui? this may have been sarcasm. Witness could not say how his firm had used four bales of straw, ,b u t as the docket made it that amount, he supposed it was correct-

Do you mean to tell the Court you used four bales of straw ? — That's the information- supplied ' by the packers.

_. v The lawyer was not satisfied with tiais, and asked witness if four bales of straw would not cover the Court and provide bedding for horses.

Witness was not very definite :about the quantity of straw used* but said the men worked eight hours a day, and was asked if he would be surprised td know that his firm took about a week to pack the hatful of furniture. He said it was 39 hours, and the lawyer said that meant five days. Was this reasonable time ? The witness thought so— still "under the circumstances."

Mr. Thomas was next concerned ABOUT THE TRIFLING CHARGE of 10s 6d for brown paper, and 16s 6d for scrim, and > even cavilled about nails and wire, which" were thrown m at the nominal figure of 5s- He was told the price of nails was 9d per lb., and elicited the information that the even money charge was arrived at by throwing m a nail without charge. It was plain to see, however, that he was incredulous about the extra nail not being charged for. He suggested it would have been bettor for the carriers to have put on five men for one day rather than one man for five days, but witness said men were short. Time certainly was long, but of course time was charged for. They had to pay £11 freight to the Union Company and got no rebate. They had no ' special arrangement with that Company, but had to pay the same as any other client.

Mr. Thomas . then disputed another item of 5s 6d for making disbursements m Wellington. "Do you know," said he, "your firm's got a glorious nerve." Witness was unmoved, but admitted that the firm might have got IS per cent, of the insurance- They took the' risk of breakage? themselves, but charged for it, of course. Extra labor ran the bill up by £1 6s Od, which the lawyer thought a big lot, but the witness seemed to think otherwise. He could not explain why it was that a colleague of O'Neil had had the furniture ' of a five-roomed bungalow removed from Auckland to Christchurch for £51 8s Od, whereas they had charged almost as much for the hatful of sticks they took to Wellington.

Three packers^ said to be the best of their kind m Maoriland, gave evidence, but

SHED-NO LIGHT on the scale of charges. The manager of the company said he had been complimented more than once on the way tliey did their work. The furniture occupied 400 cubic feet of space.

Mr. Thomas said the charges of the carrying concern were exorbitant from start to finish. This was clearly shown by the "strawdinary amount charged for the straw." He went into figures to show that the company had made a good deal of brick without straw, and said that if the Bench found that the charge for straw was fair, he would say no more. The straw was like the things that came out of, a conjuror's hat — there^was no -end of it. He would ask the Court to Bean with suspicion the rest of the items m the little bill, if the item for straw were found to be ex-strawdinary. He waxed sarcastic over the nails, particularly the one that was alleged, to be given away, to save putting m the

fraction of ninepence into the bill. The carriers said tliey weighed the nails before they used them. This was, worse than the' charge for straw. Two men were on the, job, and it took them scene five hours to take away the goods, and the Court was asked to believe that was reasonable. Notwithstanding tho use of straw to such a

WASTEFUL AND RIDICULOUS EXCESS,

the Company's record for breakages was not below the ordinary.

The Company's man of law had little to say, but the Company was a

reputable one, and, his learned friend's references 'to;-; -straw were not evidence-

The Bench' was dubious about the little bill-;, and certainly had doubts as to some of the items. ■ Even if the straw had been rammed m with a steam r'amrrier; it,. would have been impossiblia:';.t'o;3;--"^se. : '':more than half a bale. As 'to canvas and paper, the amount charged- for. -simply could not have been- us£d. As for nails and wire, he did not know about the wire, but the nails were absurd. He did not 7 know enough about, the job to- fix a fair charge, but he would knock a fiver off the bill, and give judgment for the rest, with costs.'

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