A CLAIM FAILS.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume III, Issue 881, 6 December 1916, Page 10

A CLAIM FAILS.

NO LEGAL OR MORAL CLAIM. LAND AGENTS AND PRINCIPALS. The judgment of his Honour Mr Justice Sim was read by the Registrar in the Supreme Court to-day, in the case in which H. V. Uren, G. F. Vere, and F. L. Eastgate, land agents, Christchurch, proceeded against W. S. Maslin claiming £2OO, with interest at the rate of 0 per cent., in consideration of the cancellation of an option to sell a farm of 178 acres at Lincoln, the property of the defendant. The elaim arose out of a written appointment as agents, and its subsequent revocation. The defendant wrote to the plaintiffs appointing them sole agents. By a second document dated about a month later, defendant cancelled the appointment, and offered to pay £2OO to the plaintiffs as consideration for the revocation. The defendant admitted the appointment and the offer to pay £2OO, but set up three defences:—(l) That the authority as sole agent was given without consideration; (2) that the offer to pay £2OO was also made without consideration; and, (3) that the defendant was induced by misrepresentation of plaintiffs to give the letter of April 8. His Honour said that before considering the defences raised it was necessary to determine what the rights of the plaintiffs were under the letter of March 26 written by the defendant to the plaintiffs and which the plaintiffs contended amounted to an agreement by the defendant to employ them as his sole agents. Plaintiffs considered that if the defendant revoked their authority to sell they would be entitled to recover damages for breach of contract. That, in his Honour's opinion, was not the effect of the letter. The me: -g of the letter was that the plaintiffs were authorised to sell the property at not less than £SO per ! acre, and that in the event of their ! effecting a sale on or before April 24 they were entitled to retain as ! commission anything obtained over j £SO an acre. The stipulation as to ! time related only to the special com- ! mision and not to the duration of the agency. As to the defence of misrepresentation, his Honour thought the defendant was not misled by anything | that was said to him by the plaintiffs, He understood the legal position and knew that the plaintiffs were not justified in taking up the positior they did. He submitted to what he regarded as an unjust demand and made the best bargain he could with j the plaintiffs simply because he was anxious to come to terms at once with Munro Smith and could not dc so until the plaintiffs' claim had beet settled. I In respect to the defence of want of consideration, his Honour sait the story told by the plaintiffs Uren and Eastgate, seemed im probable, and he thought thi defendant's version of these in terviews was to be preferred The plaintiffs must have knowi i that the claim which thev made | was not well founded, and theii want of bona fides was shown bj I the fact that the plaintiff Eastgate | refused to produce the letter oi March 26 to the defendant for hi; inspection, and made an untrue statement to the defendant that hi (Eastgate) had consulted a solicitoi ■as to his legal position, and hae been advised that the defendan ] would have to settle any claim tin plaintiffs had before lie could d( anything with the property. Th< truth was that the plaintiffs tool I advantage of the defendant's anxietj to settle with Smith without delay and of Mr Stringer's excessive cau tion in the matter, to extort from tlu defendant a promise to pay a sun of money to which they, as they wel knew, had no claim either legally oi morally. The promise was made therefore, without consideration and could not be enforced. Judgment was for the defendan with costs on the lowest scale. At the hearing Mr J. J. Dougal appeared for the plaintiffs, and Mi S. G. Raymond, K.C., with him Mi Johnston, for the defendant.