PROBLEM FOR FELL COURT

Taranaki Daily News, 22 June 1933, Page 7

PROBLEM FOR FELL COURT

APPLICATION OF RELIEF ACT ARE COMPANY SHARES EXEMPT? ARGUMENT BY COUNSEL HEARD. COURT RESERVES ITS DECISION. By Telegraph—Press Association. Wellington, June 21. The Court of Appeal to-day considered the important legal question whether the Mortgagors’ Relief Act, 1931, and its amendments apply to mortgages of shares in companies. Application was filed in the Supreme Court, Wellington, under- the Mortgagors Relief Act, 1931, and the Mortgagors and Tenants Relief Act, 1932, on behalf of a mortgagor for relief with respect to a mortgage executed in July, 1930, over three parcels of bank shares, securing the repayment of £3OOO and interest. The question whether the Act was extended to cover such mortgage present some difficulty, the matter was heard by the Full Court, consisting of Sir Michael Myers (Chief Justice), Sir A. Herdman and Judges MacGregor, Blair and Kennedy. Counsel for the mortgagor, after referring to the section of the Mortgagors’ Relief Act wherein a mortgage is defined as any deed, etc., vzhereby security for payment of moneys ’or for the performance of any contract is granted over land or chattels or any interest therein respectively, submitted that the v.-ord “chattels” should be given the modern meaning, which was “any type of property except real property.” He submitted that the history of the mortgagors’ relief legislation clearly showed that the Legislature had adopted the word in its widest and most modern sense. Such a meaning would be sufficiently wide to cover the choses in the action, such as shares in a company. ; ■ Counsel for the mortgagee contended that the Court should adopt the older and narrower meaning of the word, which restricted the term “chattels” to tangible personal property. He dealt at length with the difficulties which would arise in connection with local body loans in the event of the choses in the action being held to 'be chattels within the meaning of the relief legislation. The Court reserved its decision.