A Racing Law Suit.

New Zealand Illustrated Sporting & Dramatic Review, Volume IV, Issue 163, 7 September 1893, Page 7

A Racing Law Suit.

In our last issue we gave an outline of the argument in the Christchurch Supreme Court on the 23rd inst., on an application by the Canterbury Jockey Club to have the interim injunction granted by His Honor Mr Justice Denniston restrainingthe stewards from hearingand determining the objections made by Major George, dissolved. This was another brand of the case, O’Brien v. Stead, arising out of the C.J.C. Challenge Stakes. After hearing argument, His Honor reserved judgment, which he delivered on Thursday last, and the text of which is : — ‘ After detailing the facts of the case, and referring to the peculiar and special power of stewards, he said the plaintiff now in effect asked that the injunction be made perpetual, doing so on the ground that the defendants were interested in the result of the protest. If so, it was not personally, but as members of the Jockey Club. The plaintiff, in his statement of claim, alleged that Stead, with a view to enable the defence to be set up in the action, and to prevent the plaintiff from recoveiing moneys claimed thereby, had procured an objection to be lodged by the owner of the second horse in the race. This Stead denied, and His Honor accepted the denial unreservedly ; but it had not been denied that Major George’s protest was the direct result of plaintiff’s action against the club, and that the one would not have been heard of but for the other. There was, however, no legal objection to any defendant, whether in retaliation for litigation, or to assist him in the litigation, advising or inducing a third party to assert in the same or another tribunal his rights to the subject matter of litigation. There was no evidence, indeed no suggestion, of collusion and conspiracy, which could alone justify any interference of the Court on this ground. His Honor referred to the hurried manner in which the meeting to consider the protest had been called, and the appeal of the plaintiff, and the Court’s interference by way of interim injunction to restrain that particular meeting was justified. The action referred to, however, was not the action of the defendants but of the executive ; even if some of the defendants were connected with the executive, and possibly more or less responsible for its action, there had been, in His Honor’s opinion, nothing shown to call upon the Court to interfere generally with the right of defendants to hear and decide the protest. Why should he say that these gentlemen would not decide the variois points raised honestly and judicially, and to the best of their ability ? The plaintiff had been amply justified in taking steps to obtain an injunction against the proposed meeting for July 1 Sth. He had, however, asked for more than His Honor now held him to be entitled to, and had failed in his action as a whole. He thought, therefore, he should pay the general costs of the action, less such costs as would reasonably be caused by the application for the interim injunction. Costs would be fixed at 10s. Judgment for defendants with cost of defendant stewards 10s, and Major George 7s.