A WIDOW'S CLAIM.

Auckland Star, Volume L, Issue 176, 26 July 1919, Page 11

A WIDOW'S CLAIM.

£300 DAMAGES AWARDED. In the Court of Arbitration at Wellington on Tuesday Rosina Evelina Harland brought an action against Ebenezer Wcolridge to recover £;jOO as damages for the death of her husband, who was in the employ of the defendant. | ifr. Justice Stringer presided over the Court. With him we're the assessors, Mr. W. Scott and Mr. J. MeCullough. j The plaintiff alleged that from February 7, 1017, to September 1. 1917, her husband, the late Thomas Harland, wia employed by the defendant, at a rate of £3 10/ per week, to drive a motor-car. On September 1, 1917, he was driving a car. with a passenger named Archibald Thompson, from Opunake to Wanganui. Between 10 and 11 p.m.. about nine miles from Wanganui, Harland had to swerve suddenly in order to avoid a car that was carrying no lights. The result was that his car skidded, ran over a bank, capsized, and burnt. Harland was taken to Wanganui Hospital, and there he died on September 17 as the result, plaintiff alleged, of the injuries- that he had sustained through the accident. Plaintiff claimed that she and her two children, aged eight and five years respectively, had been totally dependent on tho earnings of the deceased. The defendant denied that Harland died from injuries received in the accident. The cause of Harland's death, according to the defendant, was typhoid fever. j In giving judgment for the plaintiff lor £.fOO general damages. £20 funeral expenses, and £10 10/ costs, the Court j held it to have been proved that the j accident had rendered Harland an «asv [ prey to the disease with which he bocilSe infected. It found that the plaintiff had ; succeeded in establishing the necessary I "unbroken chain of causation" between J the accident and Harland's death.