ALLEGED LIBEL

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19048, 27 June 1924, Page 2

ALLEGED LIBEL

AN UNUSUAL CASE. (Per Press Association). WELLINGTON, June 26. An alleged libel case was commenced at the Supreme Court to-day, Hart and Penlington, Ltd. of Wellington, merchants, claiming £5OOO damages from R. Hannah and Company, Wellington, boot and shoe manufacturers. A special jury was empanelled. The action arose from an advertisement in the Evening Post on February 14, 1924, and in provincial papers about the same time, and from sale displays exhibited on defendant's shop windows. It was admitted that on January 12 last, pontiffs agreed to sell to the defendants a stuck oi boots and shoes, then in plaintiff’s warehouse, at landed cost, less twenty per cent., except in the case of samples, on which 25 per cent, was to be allowed. Then, plaintiffs alleg ed, appeared an advertisement announcing a sweeping clearance and stating that R. Hannah and Company had bought from the plaintiffs at half price for cash £lO,OOO worth of boots and shoes. Notices to the same effect wore, it is alleged, placed on shop ■windows. Plaintiffs claim that the advertisements and notices meant, and were understood to mean, that the plaintiffs were Insolvent, or in financial difficulty, and had been compelled to dispose of the boots and shoes at considerably less than their value., or, alternatively, that the plaintiffs had ceased to carry on business generally, or at least in bots and shoes.

Defendants denied that the notices were capable of the meanings alleged, or of any defamatory meaning. Plaintiffs claim that the notices were false and malicious, and the defendants said that they were made in the usual course of business, in the honest belief of their truth, and without malice.

Counsel for the plaintiffs said that only £3319 15s 2d had been paid for the stocks, excluding samples, which were a negligible quantity. Witnesses were called from Auckland, Hamilton and Carterton, who gave evidence to the effect that they saw the advertisement or posters, and that in consequence they had done no further business with defendants. They took the meaning of the poster to be that plaintiffs had sold the stock to Hannah’s 50 per cent, under cost, and they had done so because they were hard up for money. They would not have taken the same course of refusing to deal with plaintiffs had they known the true facts as given by the plaintiff, namely that the goods represented a clearing sale of warehouse stock, including oddments and dead stock, etc. at a price 20 per cent, under landed cost.

The hearing was adjourned until to morrow.