A wandering brown bull, who didn't come when he was called for identification by a magistrate, is at the centre of a legal dispute between two bull-keepers in Vava'u. An appellant claims the bull is Hercules.

Lord Chief Justice O.G. Paulsen in a Neiafu Appeal ruling on March 26 said: “the circumstances of the site visit, which I understand more than seven men attended, was hardly conducive to the bull answering to its name.”

The parties Sam Tamale and Kaati Halatoa told the court they lost bulls from the tax allotments where they were kept.

Hercules

Tamale claimed that the disputed bull was Hercules, a friendly bull who would come when it was called. It went missing around May 2016. The bull fled a couple of times. When he retrieved the bull in 2016 he was accused of “kidnapping” the disputed bull from a place where Halatoa kept his animals.

The appeal brought by Tamale (appellant) v Halatoa (respondent), was against a 2016 decision by the Principal Magistrate in Neiafu, who found Halatoa was the bull's owner and ordered that it be returned to him.

The Principal Magistrate had been satisfied that on the balance of probabilities that the bull was owned by Halatoa because the bull was tied up where he kept his animals and Tamale had taken it. Tamale had taken the bull rather than bringing a legal claim for recovery. Tamale had said the bull was tame but at the site visit when Tamale called the bull it fled into the bushes 'confirming it was not his bull'.

Tamale had a photograph of Hercules and had two witnesses. The Principal Magistrate had sighted the bull 'as shown in the photo' but it fled.

Halatoa also had two witnesses heard by the magistrate.

Appeal case

In the appeal case Tamale claimed the Principal Magistrate was wrong to infer from Halatoa's possession of the bull that he was the owner of it when the bull had been lost for many months, and also on other grounds.

Chief Justice Paulsen in his March 26 ruling allowed the appeal by Tamale and set aside the decision of the Principal Magistrate, after he was unable to determine the reasons for the decision of the lower court.

“The Principal Magistrate was required to set out, even if only briefly, the evidence that the witnesses gave and provide his reasons for preferring the witnesses of one side over the other,” he said.

"The reason the Principal Magistrate was required to summarize the witnesses' evidence and say who he believed and why, is so that the parties and the public may have no doubt that he made an honest choice doing the best he could on the evidence.

“Without reasons this court's role on appeal is frustrated because I have no ability to assess the reasonableness of the result arrived at by the Principal Magistrate.”

The Chief Justice said he did not hear the witnesses and had no way of assessing the respective credibility upon which the case falls to be determined.

“I find I have no alternative but to allow the appeal and refer the matter back to the Magistrates' Court for rehearing.”

The appeal was allowed, the decision of the Principal Magistrate was set aside and the case was referred back to Magistrates' Court  to be heard before a different magistrate.

Each party is to bear their own costs of the appeal.