PERSONAL INQUIRY.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 54, Issue 194, 30 May 1934, Page 3

PERSONAL INQUIRY.

PRINCIPLES OF COMPENSATION. \ (Special to the “ Guardian.”) WELLINGTON, May 29/ “Many of the principles upon which compensation is awarded or withheld in cases of personal injury are illogical. They ought to be swept away as being unsuitable to an age of motorcars/’ said Mr O. C. Mazengaib, in an address to members of the Insurance Institute and Officers’ Guild. , The first group of anomalies Mr Mazeugarb said, arose from the application of a legal maxim of obscuio origin—that a personal action died with the person. “A negligent driver may himself oe killed accident or commit suicide, or he may die of natural causes before the injured people can bring their claims to judgment, and, if lie is dead, all hope of redress for the injured disappears. This is one of the greatest defects in the scheme of compulsory insurance introduced in 1928, hut though the Chief Justice drew attention to it, the anomaly has not yet been removed. In the converse case of the death of an innocent party, the maxim causes similar injustice. “If your wife died through accident, while travelling in a ’bus, your right, even to hospital and funeral expenses, would depend on whether you bought the ticket for her. If you did not, all you could do would bo to sue undei the Deaths by Accident Compensation Act for the pecuniary loss of her services as your housekeeper. “If justice is to he done, surely the negligent motorist or his insurance company should pay all hospital, medihal and funeral expenses necessitated by his faulty driving, and a sum by way of solatium to a sorrowing husband or parent.”