SUIT AGAINST DUKE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 75, Issue 177, 29 July 1932, Page 3

SUIT AGAINST DUKE

LAND AGENT’S CLAIM FAILS. A claim for £3097 by Mr. Alfred Harbert against the Duke of Marlborough was dismissed with costs in a London Court lately. Mr. Harbert stated that from 1916 to 1922 he was the duke’s financial secretary in connection with farming operations on the Blenheim Estates, Oxford, and from 1922 to 1930 he was estate agent. He declared that the duke made an oral agreement to employ him instead of chartered accountants to conduct negotiations for tax relief, and that he should be J>aid five per cent, on sums recovered. In all, he alleged, he recovered £61.951. Counsel for the duke stated that what Mr. Harbert did was in his ordinary duties. The duke gave evidence denying the alleged agreement, and mentioned that a firm or accountants had always been responsible for work in respect of his income tax matters. Mr. Justice McCardie pointed out thta throughout the correspondence between the duke and Mr. Harbert over a lonr range of years there was no hint by Mr. Harbert of the alleged agree ment. “I cannot help feeling,” he continued, “that Mr. Harbert thought that by bringing the matter into Court he might force the duke to pay soacthing rather than have publicity. 1 tm satisfied that this alleged agreement wa< never made.”