EFFECT OF BILL OF SALE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 September 1934, Page 7

EFFECT OF BILL OF SALE

SECURITY OVER LIVESTOCK

“CHAOS AMONG DAIRY FARMERS.” JUDGMENT IN THE SUPREME COURT AMENDING LEGISLATION SOUGHT. (By Wire —Parliamentary Reporter.) Wellington, Last Night. The attention of the Prime Minister, the Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes, was called by Mr. W. J. Polson, member for Stratford, in the House of Representatives to-day to the judgment of Mr. Justice Biair in the case of James William Harvey and Harold John Fitzsimmons and the North Taranaki Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd., in which His Honour held that under the present law the mere giving of a chattel security affecting live stock and plant made over property in milk to the Crown and that therefore a farmer had no further right in the disposal of the milk. Mr. Polson said it was also held that once a farmer had executed such an instrument he could net without expressed approval give an order on moneys which might become payable to him from a dairy company in future. He asked Mr. Forbes whether in view of this judgment he proposed to bring down legislation to rectify the position. “This judgment,” said Mr. Polson, “raises the difficulty that a dairy company cannot pay to anyone but the grantee any moneys for milk supplied, although the order may be for only a portion of the milk, and it has created chaos amongst dairy farmers who have given bills of sale and dairy companies who have accepted orders from grantors of bills of sale and holders of subsequent orders. ' ■ “I have perused the judgment referred to and am advised that it is based on the facts of the particular case. It is to be observed that the instrument by way of security in this case gives a charge, inter alia, over all milk which shall be produced during the continuance of the security, excluding that required by the grantor for his personal or household consumption. “The learned judge, in holding that the grantee could demand and' receive the whole of the proceeds of the sale of milk and that it would be unlawful for the grantor in this case to dispose of any milk without the grantee’s consent, is not in conflict with the recognised principles of the law affecting bills of sale. "The grantee in this particular case is making no attempt to enforce any power of sale, rescission or entry into, possession conferred by the security, but is merely varying the proportion of proceeds from 20 per cent, to 30 per cent., which the judge held it was perfectly entitled to do.”