FITNESS WARRANT

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 68, Issue 273, 28 August 1948, Page 5

FITNESS WARRANT

CRITICISM BY JUDGE , f • (P.A.) AUCKLAND, August 27. On the grounds that no duty involving personal liability to a car owner arises from a contract for the examination of the car and the issue of a warrant of fitness, and that the warrant did not extend to the steering assembly, Mr Justice Finlay, in the Supreme Court to-day, gave judgment for defendant, Johns’s Garage, Ltd., Kaitaia. Plaintiff, Arthur Maxwell, farmer, of Okaihau, who was injured when the steering assembly of his car failed and the car overturned when it had travelled 675 miles after it had been overhauled and a warrant of fitness issued, had sought to recover damages. ' The jury found that defendant had not exercised reasonable care when examining the steering assembly.

His Honour said that under the Traffic Regulations, 1936, a warrant of fitness did not extend to the draglink of steering assembly, and the examiner had only to satisfy himself that the car complied with the regulations regarding lights, brakes, warning devices and certain particular equipment.

“Such warrant, with its, circumscribed relevance, is a misnomer, and seriously misleading,” his Honour said, “but that cannot alter; the legal incidence of the warrant or the responsibility of the examiner- who issues it. Although a car with defective steering gear is a private and public menace, the regulations have clearly not, taken cognisance of the fact, and no effort has been made to bring the examination of .steering gears within the gambit of duty of the examiner.”