WHAT IS EVENING?

Sun (Christchurch), Volume VI, Issue 1641, 19 May 1919, Page 11

WHAT IS EVENING?

A LEGAL DEFINITION. IMPOETANT SUPREME COUET JUDGMENT. - Judgment was delivered in the Supreme Court this morning by his Honour Mr Justice Hcnlman in an appeal by the Labour Department against a decision given at Timaru by Mr V. G. Day, S.M., who had decided against tne department in a prosecution brought by it against Manning and Dawson, grocers, of Timaru, for having kept their premises open after 7 p.m. on December 31, 1918, contrary to the hour of closing fixed by requisition of those engaged in the trade. The case was argued before his Honour "on Wednesday last, Mr M. J. Gresson appearing for the Labour Department and Mr W. Campbell for the respondents. The argument turned on the meaning of the word "evening" occurring in section 2"> of the Shops and Offices Act, 1008, and its amendments, the Act itself containing no definition of the word. Under legislation passed in 1918, however, evening was defined as "the time of day not earlier than 5 o'clock in the afternoon."

Giving judgment to-day, his Honour said:—"The defendant company seeks to justify its action upon the ground that evening, during the month of December, does not commence until after 7 o'clock p.m. It submits iVst in the light of the judgment of hi;; Honour the Chief Justice in the case of Holdsworth v. Lightfoot, the Minister had no power to fix 7 o'clock p.m. as the ciasing hour, at any rate in the month of December, when the sun does not set at Timaru until after that hour, his Honour having decided in the ease quoted that he was bound to adopt the strict meaning of the word 'evening.' Accordingly the legislation subsisting when he delivered his judgment did not authorise the Minister to fix 5 o'clock p.m. as a closing hour in those months of the year when the sun has not set at a o'clock.

"The law has undergone a radical change since his Honour's judgment was pronounced. What was then in vogue has now been made eertnin by the legislation passed in December, 1918. The expression 'evening' has now been given a definite meaning by sabsection 4 of section 41 of the War Regulations and Statute Law Amendment Act, 1918. 'Evening' is to be deemed the time of the day isot earner than 5 o'clock in the afternoon. "It seems to me that sub-see'.ion 4 of section 41 of the Act of 1918 declares in an unmistakable way that the boots of a day between 5 p.m. and midnight are. for the purpose of section 25 of the Shops and Offices Act, 1908, to be deemed evening." * His Honour also decided against respondent's contention that, because the Shops and Offices Act, 190S, authorises a shopkeeper to-employ his assistants until 11 p.m. on New Year's Eve, it therefore followed that the "statute impliedly authorises him to keep open until that hour. His Honour said that the matters legislated upon were distinct, and the fact that the legislation might create anomalous positions, or some seeming inconsistency, did not —at any rate in the ease under review —raise any implication that a shopkeeper bound by the "Gazette" notice of August 11, 1910, may keep open until 11 p.m. >• The judgment proceeded:—"As the statute expressly gives grocers a right to determine by the vote of a majority their own closing hours, and as, in the exercise of that right, they have themselves settled upon a closing time which makes keeping open on a night on which they are permitted by law to employ assistants until 11 p.m. an offence, I fail to perceive that a right to keep open until that hour on that night can be implied. Surely it would be absurd to find, on the one hand, that grocers, through the medium of a requisition, could close at 7 pan. on working days, including New Year's Eve, and to decide, on the other hand, that because seetion 5 of the statute permits the employment of assistants until 11 p.m.. the same grocers enjoy a right to keep open beyond the hour whieh they determine should be the closing hour." His Honour allowed the appeal, with £lO 10/- costs.