DISPUTE OVER POTATOES

Taranaki Daily News, 14 June 1929, Page 5

DISPUTE OVER POTATOES

CLAIM AND COUNTER-CLAIM. Judgment was reserved by Mr. R. W. Tate, S.M., in the New Plymouth Magistrate’s Court yesterday after the hearing of a disputed claim between John Taylor, farm labourer, and Thomas E. Larking, a farmer of Okato. Taylor claimed from Larking the sum of. £3O Is 9d and the defendant counter-claimed for £5O for an alleged breach of agreement. Counsel for the plaintiff, Mr. R. H. Quilliam, stated that the claim for £3O Is 9d was based on an agreement between the parties, made on August 25, 1928, in which Taylor agreed to work as a general farm hand for the defendant for the season 1928-29 for £2 a week and his keep. Provision was made for the plaintiff to grow three or four acres of potatoes and employ the necessary labour for the harvesting of the crop, the profits to be divided between the two after a deduction of £lO to the credit of defendant and the costs of bags, twine, cartage and commission. The gross retorn for the crop was £O2 2s 8d and the point of difference between the parties was as to what deductions were to be made before the profits were divided. The defendant claimed for the cost of potato seed and manures, making a total deduction of £49 Is 7d, which would leave £l3 Is Id to divide. This, counsel suggested, would mean that the plaintiff was to do the whole of his work for about £6, which was unreasonable. Regarding the defendant’s counterclaim of £5O for an alleged breach of agreement, in plaintiff leaving the defendant’s employment before the expiration of the term of the agreement, counsel submitted that defendant left because he could not get the money that was owing to him. When he left he was paid £2O, but he at once said that defendant owed him a further £3O and immediately ‘took steps to recover that amount. Mr. C. White, counsel for defendant, contended that the agreement meant that the parties were to divide the gross proceeds of the potato crop and the deductions were to be made from plaintiff’s share. It was not the intention to make all deductions and then divide the profits, as under such a scheme defendant would be contributing half of the allowances to be made to himself. The fact that the potato crop had been a 'failure, had cost £3l Is 7d to produce and had returned only £62 2s 8d was the real trouble, he eaid, and plaintiff was trying to put the burden of the loss on defendant. He pointed out that defendant had been seriously inconvenienced in his farm work through plaintiff leaving in March. The end of the season, according to local custom, was May 31, and after Tayler had given notice he had ceased to take any interest in his work. It had been diffl- s cult for defendant to fill Taylor’s place and he had been seriously handicapped in preparing his land and sowing down new grass.