SUPREME COURT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23945, 21 October 1939, Page 7

SUPREME COURT

CASE ON APPEAL Mr Justice Ostler was engaged in the Supreme Court yesterday in hearing an appeal by Albert Frederick Wootton (Mr J. C. Robertson) against the decision of Mr H. W. Bundle, S.M., in a case in which Wholesalers, Ltd., was given judgment for £9B 12s 4d, less certain deductions, for rent due. The respondent company was represented by Mr W. F. Forrester. Mr Robertson said that the appellant did not dispute the correctness of the claim, but considered that the respondent did not allow him deductions under the National Expenditure Adjustment Act, 1932. When he asked for the reduction in rent he was told that the Act did not apply in his case. The magistrate, however, found that the Act did apply, but held that payments made by the appellant were lawfully appropriated by the respondent company towards the payment of rent apparently due under the contract between the two parties. Counsel submitted lengthy argument on legal aspects of the appeal, and Mr Forrester replied, submitting that if the appellant’s contention was correct he was going to benefit under the Act because he was in arrears with his rent.—His Honor said the letters put in in the case were sufficient, he believed, to justify the magistrate in not accepting the full evidence of the appellant. He agreed that the magistrate was right in holding that no reductions could be claimed until the rent had been fixed under the Act. His decision, however, would be reserved on certain points, including that of his right to say that the magistrate’s finding in law that there was not a further contract in 1934 vias wrong.