SUPERME COURT.—IN BANCO.

Otago Witness, Issue 1240, 4 September 1875, Page 5

SUPERME COURT.— IN BANCO.

Wednesday, 25th August. (Before His Honour Mr Justice Williams.) SCOTT v. BRODIUCK. Air Macassey moved for a rule nisi for a new tnal, to rescind or discbarge a ride that had been made absolute by Mr Justice Johnston, for a new trial, on the ground that the verdict was against the weight of evidence. It waa an action for specific relief. Mr Macassey submitted, among other grounds in support of the motion, that the rule absolute became waived and abandoned by lapse of time. A rule nisi was granted. BfcAKKLY V. HOLLAND. This was an argument of a rule n in' for a nonsuit or new triaL Mr Smith to move the rule absolute, Mr Macassey and Mr G. E. Barton to show cause. It appeared that a rule had been obtained on behalf of the defendant, calling on the plaintiff to ihow cause why a verdict of Ll5O damages, which had been obtained in an action for malicious prosecution, should not be set aside, or a nonsuit entered in pursuance with leave reserved, or why a new trial should not be had on the ground of misdirection, and that the verdict was against the weight of evidence. Mr Macassey, for the plaintiff, submitted that the three grounds practically resolved

themselves into the point, whether there was any want of reasonable and probable cause for making a criminal charge, in re the stealing of a certain steer. The question, it was submitted, narrowed itself into this— Whether, in case of a person who set the criminal law in motion, acting not from his own knowledge, but from information from others, the reasonableness of his belief should be involved in the facts tried by, th e Jury? Here the plaintiff's innocence had been established by his acquittal by the Jury on the criminal charge. Secondly, the steer had been positively sworn to by the plaintiff as his property. There was 110 question whatever regarding the ownership of the animal, and in everything that the plaintiff had done with the animal his acts were such as showed that he had no desire of concealment. Ihe defendant had launched a grave criminal charge, and proceeding not from anything withm hia own knowledge, but on the secondhand story related to him by his servant and another man. He (Mr Macassey) asked : Was the defendant, in the eye of the law, justified on such materials, in launching a criminal charge against one holding the position which JtJlakely did, and that, failing to establish the charge, to say that he (defendant) was not responsible. He submittod it was a monstrous doctrine to say that the defendant could do so. Mr Barton followed. He said, even assuming that defendant honestly believed that the beast was his .basing the argument on that (whereas lie had facts to his knowledge which ought to have made him more cautious), he should not have set the criminal law in motion in the way in which he did. It was plain that the Jury had quite enough to show them that Holland had sufficient before him to believe the steer was Blakely's, that Holland had no knowledge to lead him to believe that the Bteer had been stolen, and at least had evidence before him to lead him to conclude that there might liavo been a mistake by Blakely in treating the animal as his own,

Mr Smith submitted that the defendant had reasonable and probable cause, and that the rule for the nonsuit bp made absolute. He argued in support of the different points on which the application was made. His Honour reserved judgment.