HALL ESTATE CASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24723, 27 September 1941, Page 2

HALL ESTATE CASE

FIRST WEEK OF HEARING SUBMISSIONS FOR APPELLANTS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 26. The first week of the hearing in the Court of Appeal of the case of Hall and others v. the Guardian Trust and Executors Company of New Zealand, Ltd., and others was completed yesterday. The week has been occupied by Mr W. D. Lysnar taking the court through the very extensive notes of evidence taken during the hearing in the Supreme Court, and the judgment of Mr Justice Callan in that court, which of itself occupies 179 printed pages. The main submission developed by Mr Lysnar in his address up to this stage is that the evidence reveals so many irregularities, so many things omitted, and so many illegal acts performed on the part of the Guardian Trust, that it is unreasonable to suppose that these irregularities, omissions and illegalities have arisen in good faith, and the court will be compelled to the view that fraud on the part of the Guardian Trust and conspiracy between it and the banks concerned have been established. One of the main alleged irregularities on which Mr Lysnar relies, and which he is seeking to establish from the evidence, is improper communication of confidential matter relating to the late Mr Hall’s financial position, which communication, he says, passed between the two banks during Mr Hall’s life-time. Mr Lysnar contends that this communication gives the beneficiaries under Mr Hall’s will an action against the two banks. In the course of Mr Lysnar’s address, he has made it clear that he absolves Mr F. W. Nolan from all charges of fraud, and that the conspiracy which he alleges against the other respondents is not criminal conspiracy, but merely conspiracy which is actionable at the suit of the appellants. Mr Lysnar also contends that fraud is established against the respondent, the Guardian Trust, if he establishes any form of wrong doing or illegality, whether unintentional or otherwise, on the part of that company during the course of its administration of the estate, and that it is not necessary for him to prove fraud in the more generally accepted meaning of the term.

Mr Lysnar resumed his address today.