DOCTOR'S CLAIM

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23334, 28 October 1937, Page 16

DOCTOR'S CLAIM

AN AMBALMING CASE BODY OF CHINESE GREENGROCER An unusual debt claim was heard in the Ohakune Magistrate's Court before Mr R. M. Watson, S.M., a few days ago, when Dr Lewis Edmund Jordan, of Ohakune, claimed £44 2s from Charles Guthrie, a Chinese of Timaru, as the balance of a charge of 45 guineas incurred through plaintiff's embalming of Guthrie's brother in April, 1933. The embalming, it was stated, had been carried out under instruction from Mr L. F. Baird, solicitor, of Raetihi, who had verbally assured plaintiff that there was some £4OO in cash in the estate, for which he was acting, and that the operation could be paid for from this amount. The deceased, Ah Duck King, had been in business as a greengrocer in Ohakune, and when the defendant, Guthrie, had been notified in China of the death of his brother he had cabled instructions for the embalming with a view to bringing the body to China. He had appointed Mr Baird to administer the estate and had drawn a sum of £350 before departing with the body for China. Of this sum £92 had been paid as freight on the body and a further £l5O for funeral expenses in China, defendant's fare and incidentals. In his absence the estate had gone bankrupt, and the defendant did not think that the £350 was a substantial part of the estate at the time he asked the solicitor for the money. Cross-examined, Guthrie said that it was an old Chinese custom to travel with a body to guide the soul at the yarious ports of call. He would not have had the body embalmed, however, had he known that there was no money in the estate. He would have had the body buried in New Zealand. Dr Jordan, in evidence, said that he had carried out the operation in good faith, under the impression that the estate was in a position to pay the fee. In reply to a question by the magistrate, the plaintiff declared that he considered the charge of 45 guineas to be a fair and reasonable one. It was the first embalming called for in his practice, but he considered that since it was a specialised operation, which the average general practitioner was incapable of performing, the charge •was not unduly high. Presenting the case for the plaintiff. Mr J. R. Callaghan submitted that Guthrie was personally liable. The magistrate upheld this view, remarking that a salient feature of defendant's evidence was his admission of issuing the initial instructions. If ever the equity -and igood conscience clause meant anything it did so in this case. Judgment for £44 2s was entered accordingly.