PIANO SEIZED TO PAY RENT

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 837, 4 December 1929, Page 10

PIANO SEIZED TO PAY RENT

OWNERS WIN CLAIM FOR VALUE (From Our Resident Reporter) NAPIER, Today. A piano which bad been distrained for rent due was the subject of a claim for damages by John Court. Ltd., of Auckland, against the Hillen and Howard Construction Company, for £72 9s, the value of the instrument. Reserved judgment in the case was given in the Napier Magistrate’s Court yesterday by Mr. A. M. Mowlem, S.M. Evidence given at the hearing of the claim showed that the plaintiff company sent the piano to Napier at the request of a man named Keen, who at' the time was living in a house owned by defendants. No acknowledgment was received and a representative was sent down to investigate. lie foLind that Keen had disappeared owing rent and that his landlords had seized the piano and sold it by public auction. The plaintiff company claimed that the defendant company’s action in selling the piano to defray the expenses due in rent was wrongful, since it was claimed that the instrument was the property of the plaintiff company and not of Keen.

“I am of opinion that the property in the piano at no time passed from the plaintiff company to Keen and that therefore it never became the property of the tenant, and was consequently not distrainable,” said the magistrate. “As to allegations of delay on the part of the defendant company, it appears to mo that at the crucial time no delay occurred. As to damages it seems to mo to be clear that the damage claimable in such an action is the value of the chattel at the time of seizure. There is no evidence to show that the Piano was in other than good order and condition on arrival. I propose therefore to accept the evidence as to its price at the time of deliverv and to enter judgment for the plaintiff company for £72 9s, with costs.”