LIBEL ACTION

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXVII, Issue 19301, 30 September 1932, Page 14

LIBEL ACTION

CLAIM AGAINST UNION FAILS. CASE OF UNFINANCIAL MEMBER. By Telegraph—Press Association WELLINGTON, September 29. In the Magistrate's Court, Mr McNeil, S.M., gave judgment for E. Kennedy, secretary of the Federated Cooks’ and Stewards’ Union, who was a defendant in an action in which David Stewart, a ship’s steward, claimed £SO damages in respect of the publication by Kennedy of statements alleged by Stewart to be libellous. The Magistrate awarded costs, amounting to £4/16/-, against plaintiff. The libels alleged by plaintiff were that defendant, in a note to Captain Jessup, of Eckford and Company, had deleted the words: “I think you will find him a suitable man,” and had made statements which plaintiff alleged meant that he had failed for more than twelve months to pay his Union subscriptions; that he acted dishonestly in failing to put himself right with his Union, and act square; and that he was not a member of the Union. , Mr McNeil found that it was established that the practice of deleting words in a question had been in use for some years in cases such as plaintiff’s, where an employer asked a Union for a named man. He held, therefore, that In the circumstances the deletion was not libel of plaintiff. He also found that plaintiff had failed to keep a promise to Kennedy to pay something from his first pay, and the balance within a limited period, in settlement of overdue Union fees. Plaintiff was thirteen months in arrears with Union fees, and defendant’s action in removing him from the membership roll of the Union was in compliance with the rules.