After a first hearing in the High Court at Christchurch in May 2018 Justice Gerald Nation urged the parties to settle the dispute out of court or else he would be compelled to make a judgment.
After out-of-court negotiations and a final hearing in September the Clarks, represented by farm manager Ross Clark, ultimately sought nearly $640,000
The total amount awarded relates to transactions including Clark’s $210,277.50 purchase of 176 pregnant heifers, another series of deals or attempted deals involving 253 heifer calves and 112 empty dairy heifers, of which Clark received just 71 or 72.
The judgment over lost, missing or unpaid livestock examined aspects of Clark’s dealings with his former Rural agent, John Williams.
Justice Nation noted Clark put a significant degree of trust in Williams and that even though he acknowledged having problems with Williams provided him with the paperwork for transactions and considered Williams was a good agent in terms of setting up deals.
Though the judge accepted some of Williams’ evidence he found there were some matters on which he seemed unnecessarily defensive or unhelpful and some areas where his vagueness was of concern in assessing his credibility on crucial matters.
Rural general manager Simon Cox acknowledged the firm’s systems and management inadvertently allowed Williams’ irregularities to occur unnoticed and then failed to detect them for some time.
He also found Clark wasn’t entirely blameless. There was the case of Williams supplying Clark with a copy of leases relating to the missing cows and failing to realise the numbers added up to 180, not the 176 he had bought.
“I accept that Mr Clark was unduly trusting of Mr Williams, naively optimistic that all was in order as far as the leasing of the stock was concerned and casual to an extent that differed from usual farming practices in never checking on the stock,” the judgment says.
At times Clark chose to sit on his hands and ignored a warning from another Rural Livestock staffer that Williams had lost the plot.
But such negligence did not, however, contribute to Rural’s breach of its obligations and it was reasonable for Clark to expect Rural would perform a contract, it says.
Justice Nation said an unusual feature of the case was that Williams, whose conduct is under challenge, gave evidence for the plaintiffs.
The Serious Fraud Office (SFO) is investigating Williams. Rural made the complaint.
The judge exonerated Williams on one part of the claim relating to the 253 calves, saying Williams had never promised to arrange agistment for them, only to do his best to do so.
