SOLICITORS’ FIDELITY FUND

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19299, 28 September 1932, Page 14

SOLICITORS’ FIDELITY FUND

CLAIM IN APPEAL COURT. By Telegraph—press Association. WELLINGTON, Sept. 27. What appears to be the first action brought against the New Zealand Law Society, under the provisions of the Law Practitioners’ (Socicitors’ Fidelity Guarantee Fund) Act, 1929, is, on appeal, before the Court of Appeal to-day. Nelson Ben Bishop, of Waiongona, near Inglewood, instituted proceedings in December again the Society claiming out of the Guarantee Fund tivo sums of £IOOO and £52/10/-, allegedly misappropriated by Harold John Moule Thomson, who formerly practised as a solicitor in Inglewood. The Society had already met claims to the extent of over £SOOO in connection with Thomson’s defalcations, and did not dispute the facts alleged by Bishop, but contended that it was prohibited from meeting the claim out of the Fund, for by section 15 of the Act, the Fund was limited to losses by theft, committed after January 1, 1930, the date of the coming into operation of the Act, and the theft in question was committed in November, 1929.

In his judgment, delivered in August, Mr Justice Blair, before whom the action was heard, found for the Society as to the claim for £IOOO, and for Bishop as to the claim for £52/10/-. The hearing to-day involves an appeal by Bishop as to the dismissal of his claim for £IOOO, and a cross appeal by the Law Society as to the amount for which Bishop was given judgment. Counsel for Bishop said the Judge, in the Court below, based his judgment on the fact that the sum of £IOOO, which had been received from the State Advances Superintendent, in 1929, had been then stolen, and that consequently there was no money left to be stolen in February, 1930, which was the date alleged by Bishop to be the date of the theft. Counsel said he accepted the finding of the Judge as to the theft in November, but contended that subsequently, in February, 1930, Thomson had obtained certain documents from Bishop, by means of false pretences, and having obtained documents which represented £IOOO, stole them, in order to cover up his previous theft. It was upon the second theftythat Bishop’s claim was based.

Counsel for the Law Society contended that, accepting appellant’s argument at its strongest, he had been deprived only of land or of documents of title to land, neither of which in English law was capable of being stolen. Furthermore, Thomson could not be said to have actually stolen the documents, because he did with them precisely what he was instructed to do. The default, so far as appelant was concerned, lay in the fact that Thomson did not receive, as Bishop’s solicitor, the required sum of money for them. The Court reserved its decision.