BREACH OF PROMISE

Taranaki Daily News, 9 December 1926, Page 14

BREACH OF PROMISE

JUDGE’S VERDICT FOR £lOOO FORMER AUCKLANDER SUED. ALLEGED PROPOSAL AT SEA. A link between Australia, Canada and New Zealand, though of a sentimental type, was severed in the Toronto Assizes recently, before Judge Rose, when Ethel Violet Chandler sued Joseph Henry Boyd, formerly of New Zealand, for breach of promise, claiming £5OOO and obtaining £lOOO, states the New Zealand Herald Vancouver correspondent. There was no defence, but respondent was represented by counsel, who pleaded for a non-suit, asking whether plaintiff, who had been married in England and divorced in Australia, could reasonably claim damages for breach of a promise alleged to have been made elsewhere, he said, “between the island Suva, in the Fiji Group, aud New Zealand.”

The story told by the plaintiff, an attractive. stylishly-dressed young woman, wearing a leopard-skin coat, was that she was born in England, educated at Ruskin School, married in London in ■hily, 1915, to Jack Chandler, an Alia tralian architect. Engaged on war work at the time, she continued it, aud. in common with many other Anzac brides, went to A jstralia in 1919. , “We went to live in a suburb of Sydney for a short period,” said the plaintiff. “While we were there, my husband was convicted of blasphemy. I later found that he had been living with a married woman, with two children. My mother took proceedings and I obtained a divorce. STEWARDESS ON THE NIAGARA. , “I obtained an engagement a» stewardess on the Niagara, running between Sydney, Auckland and Vancouver. I received about £lOO each passage, as well as money from the passengers. On four trips I made £550. Then I transferred to the Maheno, running from Auckland to Sydney, making three trips a month. I made about £4OO in a year on her. In April, 1922, I joined the Makura, running to Vancouver, as chief stewardess. Between November, 192 z, and July, 1924, I made about £l2OO, thus making about £2600 between 1921 and 1924.”

Plaintiff described her first meeting with Joseph Henry Boyd, the defendant. “It was between Sydney and Auckland, in 1921,” she said. “But_l did'not get to know him very well until February, 192.3, when I met him while running from Sydney to Vancouver. I became intimately' acquainted with him, and he asked me to marry him. It was between Suva and Honolulu that he proposed. When we arrived at Vancouver he went to Eastern Canada. I saw him next In Sydney. Then I saw him there again the next year. He said he hoped to take me to Canada to make a permanent home in Toronto, so I agreed to marry" him. After that time I saw him usually in Auckland or Sydney.” PROPOSAL DENTED BY DEFENDANT On one of her ocean trips, plaintiff said she met a number of prominent doctors. One of them offered her a position in his hospitals. Her fiance agreed that she should accept it; he would rather' marry a dietition than a stewardess, he remarked. She took a position as matron in a hospital of 500 beds. “I do not see,” said counsel for the defence, “why this Court should try the case. Neither of the parties lives here. My client was travelling in Ontaria and got a summons, and his friends toll him to put in a defence. Since then he has returned to Sydney. He was in business in Auckland at the time, and had been there for a period of 12 years, so that he really was a native. Plaintiff was not living anywhere in particular, and is now located in the United States.” Counsel said his client denied ever having proposed marriage to the plaintiff. “I do not quite understand wSry plaintiff moved to the hospital,” remarked the judge, as he awarded £lO9O damages. An application by counsel to have it increased to £l2OO was refused.