IS HUSBAND LIABLE?

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 50, Issue 152, 9 April 1930, Page 5

IS HUSBAND LIABLE?

COLLISION DAMAGES CLAIM. INTERESTING POINT RAISED. (Per Press Association.) •. PALMERSTON NORTH, Am-il 8. Is a husband liable for damages caused by his Avife’s motor-car? This legal point, Raised for the first time in New Zealand, came before Mr Justice Smith at a sitting of the Supreme Court to-day. At fi previous sitting of the Court, Allan McKenzie Black, nurseryman, Levin, succeeded in a claim for damages against Mrs Elizabeth Macfarlane, Levin, wife of John Macfarlane, boardinghouse keeper, and was awarded £471 7s 6d. To-day, Mr F. H. Cooke, for the plaintiff asked that the husband be joined as co-defendant. The claim for damages arose out of a motor collision which occurred at the intersection of the Rongotea-Mako-whai road, with the FoxtomSanson bigliAvay. Plaintiff, aged eighteen, was a pasenger in a car driven by his father along , a side road which ran across the main road. At the intersection a car belonging to Mrs Macfarlane, and driven by her son, and in which she and her husband were passengers, collided Avith Black’s car. The result Avas that plaintiff was seriously injured. The Court, after discusing the effect of rules and regulations under the Motor Vehicles Act and their effect as regards individual rights and remedies and the legal incidence of the offside rule in certain respects, _ and the distinction betAA’een a, main ‘ road and a side road, found that both drivers Avere negligent and contributed to the collision. It held that plaintiff not owning nor controlling the car in Avhicli lie Avas being driven, Avas not identified Avith the negligence and that he Avas not one of those debarred from claiming damages against the defendant owner. His Honor added in that decision that lie did not think that Black could have judgment against the husband separately, as he had not sued the husband and wife jointly at common IaAV, adding that in ai claim under the Married Women’s Property Act judgment might be entered against the separate estate of Mrs Macfarlane, but liberty Avas reserved to counsel for plaintiff to slioav cause why judgment should be entered against the husband as well as the Avife.

The sitting of the Court to-day was to hear this application. Although the case arose on" a question of pleading it is of great public interest, because it directly raises the point of how far a husband is liable for damages caused by his wife’s motor-car. Since the passing of the Married Women’s Property Act there lias been a great conflict of legal opinion, so much so that decision in the Australian Commonwealth and Canada differ from that of the House of *Lords, which only established the rule in Great Britain by the irreducible majority of one judge. The rule laid down by the House of Lords holds that a husband is liable for his wife’s wrongful action. In Canada and Australia the courts have held that he is not. The matter has not directly come before the Court of Appeal in New Zealand or the Privy Council. 4 Counsel addressed the Court on the subject for two hours, after which his Honor reserved his decision, stating that the point ho reserved had developed -in scope much beyond what he expected.