HUNTER ESTATE CASE

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 80, Issue 86, 12 April 1938, Page 8

HUNTER ESTATE CASE

COUNSEL’S CONTENTION I Per Pi mb Association. ] WELLINGTON, April 11. Having outlined the history of the facts in the Hunter case in tne Court of Appeal, Mr C. H. Weston, K.C., for the appellants, dealt with the farming methods of the late Sil George Hunter, and submitted I hat it was clear from the evidence given in the earlier litigation relating to the estate that these were hopeless from a business point of view. Lady Hunter had herself admitted that this was the position prior to the present proceedings, but sne had now reversed her opinions, as appeared from her evidence given at the trial before Mr Justice Smith, with a view to showing that the farm was not in a very bad condition when the trustees took over its management.

Continuing nis argument on behalf of appellants, Mr Weston said that Mr Justice Smith had based his judgment on mismanagement and unnecessary loss in relation to the sheep station and improper action in a matter of a fiduciary nature. So far from there being mismanagement, the trustees haa, in the circumstances, managed the farm with success and with profit to the tenant for life and they had acted perfectly properly in fiduciary matters. It was pointed out that appellants did not seek to resume their trusteeship, but what they did uSk was that the serious reflection which had been cast on them by the judgment appealed from should be removed. The Chief Justice remarked that the Court of Appeal could only either affirm or reverse the judgment of the Supreme Court—whether the trustees reassume their office if the appeal were allowed was a question entirely for themselves. It was submitted that as during the appellant’s period of trusteeship it was impossible to sell the estate properties, their duty in kw as executors and trustees was (1) to carry on (as far as ordinary and prudent men could in the midst of an unprecedented slump) a business that had not been consistently paying for some years, and with the material for carrying on such a business, some of which was unsuited for farming and some in bad order; (2) to prevent as far as ordinary and prudent men reasonably could the deterioration in the materials at their disposal. A farming business, it was contended, should be regarded as an undivided whole and if the profit and loss account for the farm showed a conversion from a loss to a profit and a continuing increase in profits, then the conclusion must be that it was being reasonably well managed. The hearing was adjourned.