But in July the remaining tractor – a Massey Ferguson 7475 Malcolm needed to continue running Clark & Son – vanished.<\/p>\n
The 78-year-old blamed his son, according to court documents.<\/p>\n
A dispute between a Waikato father and son over the ownership of a tractor has ended up in the High Court. <\/p>\n
Early on July 9, Lance went to a Matamata work site where Malcolm was working and removed the tractor, Malcolm alleged in an affidavit to Justice Mathew Downs.<\/p>\n
\u201cI arrived at the site at daybreak to find the tractor removed\u201d, he said, noting Facebook posts suggested Lance was responsible.<\/p>\n
The father, left with no tractor to continue operating the business, applied to the High Court for an order requiring Lance to return the tractor. <\/p>\n
On July 11 Malcolm and his wife Gillian unexpectedly ran into Lance while searching for the tractor, Malcolm said.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe denied he had it \u2026 I drove off and he followed me up the road tailgating me. When I \u2026 pulled over, he zoomed past.\u201d<\/p>\n
After Malcolm\u2019s daughter and son-in-law arrived, Lance returned and each side videoed the conversation Malcolm claimed included his son saying \u201che was taking his share of the company\u201d, and that his lawyers were preparing criminal proceedings against them.<\/p>\n
Police were called, but before they arrived Malcolm alleged another incident occurred where Lance drove towards his parents \u201cat high speed\u201d before braking just in front. <\/p>\n
A police officer told Malcolm that Lance had refused to return the tractor, and police needed a court order before they could intervene.<\/p>\n
Malcolm also said his son had applied to liquidate Clark & Son, and he believed Lance took the tractor to force his parents to liquidate the company.<\/p>\n
Neither Lance nor anyone on his behalf appeared before Justice Downs at a hearing on July 17, but Malcolm\u2019s lawyer said father and son each had the only sets of keys for the tractor.<\/p>\n
It was \u201cimprobable\u201d the tractor had been taken by anyone other than Lance or someone acting on his behalf, the lawyer said.<\/p>\n
Justice Downs found there was enough evidence to implicate Lance and it was \u201cdifficult to conceive any lawful justification\u201d for taking something that was company property.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe taking of the tractor is likely to constitute a trespass to goods, a conversion, or perhaps theft.\u201d<\/p>\n
He ordered Lance to tell Malcolm where the tractor was within four hours, and to deliver it to him.<\/p>\n
The tractor hadn\u2019t been returned, and Lance was due in court next month for alleged contempt of court, Malcolm told Stuff this week.<\/p>\n
However, he took the tractor back about a month ago after finding out where it was.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have to lock it up and hide it so he can\u2019t get it.\u201d<\/p>\n
He\u2019d take the other tractor back, too, if he found out where it was as both were company property and Lance had no right to use them, Malcolm told Stuff.<\/p>\n
Lance told Stuff his parents had \u201cripped away \u2026 my whole business\u201d, removing him as director and shareholder, and taking away his livelihood.<\/p>\n
He\u2019d use the tractor he had and his parents could use the one he said they took from him.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been shafted by my whole family \u2026 they\u2019ve served so many papers on me. There\u2019s no comeback from it now. I\u2019ve tried all sorts, but they just keep going at me.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"But in July the remaining tractor – a Massey Ferguson 7475 Malcolm needed to continue running Clark &…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":30843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[74,1554,1558,5432,29688,138,2562,1349,2109,2209,2959,10055,78,111,139,69,29691,6848,1523,2730,520,1527,29689,14170,22639,29690,14168,61,29687,1524],"class_list":["post-30842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-after","tag-alleged","tag-been","tag-between","tag-bitter","tag-business","tag-claims","tag-court","tag-family","tag-father","tag-high","tag-ignored","tag-in","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-order","tag-orders","tag-over","tag-personal","tag-relationship","tag-return","tag-row","tag-scrap","tag-son","tag-tatters","tag-theft","tag-to","tag-tractor","tag-waikato"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}