[servant, enticing away - apprenticeship]

Green v. Pashley

Supreme Court of New South Wales

Willis J., 13 October 1840

Source: Sydney Herald, 14 October 1840[1]

Green v. Pashley. – This was an action brought to recover compensation for loss sustained by the defendant, having enticed away one James Glover, the plaintiff’s apprentice; a second count charged the defendant with having harboured the said apprentice.  Damages laid at £500.

            In this case the plaintiff was boat-builder on the North Shore, and the defendant a ship carpenter residing in Sydney.  From the evidence it appeared, that the plaintiff had gone to New Zealand about the tenth of March last on business, and left a person of the name of Appleby to act for him in his absence.  In April, the apprentice Glover went to the Police-office and obtained a summons for the plaintiff, to answer a charge of not teaching him his business, also for not taking dne[sic] care of him, and on the case being heard before Messrs. Manning and Dawes, they made an order cancelling the indentures, after which the defendant received the boy Glover into his employ.  In June last, the plaintiff returned to Sydney, and through his attorney, Mr. Smith, made a formal demand to have his apprentice returned which was refused, on the ground that the indenture had been cancelled.  It was also shown that the person whom the plaintiff had left to act for him, was not professionally a boat-builder, but had at one time commanded a whaler, previous to which he had been three years at the boat-building business, and that during the absence of the plaintiff, Appleby had employed himself principally in ballasting vessels.  It was also proved that, when the plaintiff received the boy Glover as an apprentice, he had received a premium of thirty pounds with him.  The defendant produced the magistrates’ order cancelling the indenture, but his Honor refused to admit it as evidence, until the whole proceedings at the Police-office were produced, at the same time, he held that the magistrates had acted properly in making the said order until the contrary was shown.  He instructed the Jury to find for the plaintiff on the second count, and left it to them to say whether the plaintiff had fulfilled his part of the agreement by leaving the apprentice in question in the charge of a person who had not been longer at the boat-building business than an apprentice, and instructed the Jury that, if they should find a verdict for the plaintiff, their damages should be estimated by the time that the defendant had employed the apprentice, but if they were of opinion, that the plaintiff had failed in fulfilling his part of the agreement, then they would return a verdict for the defendant.  The Jury retired for about half an hour, and returned a verdict for the plaintiff, damages one farthing.

            Counsel for the plaintiff – Messrs. a’Beckett and Broadhurst; Attorney, Mr. Smith; Counsel for the defendant, The Attorney General, with Mr. Foster; Attorney, Mr. G. R. Nicholls.