MINE UNDERVIEWER'S DEATH.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 285, 1 December 1928, Page 20

MINE UNDERVIEWER'S DEATH.

NO NEGLIGENCE PROVED.

WIDOW'S CLAIM FOR £200 FAILS.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.) GREYMOUTH, Friday,

A claim for £200 was brought in the Warden's Court, before the warden, Mr. W. Meldrum, and five assessors, to-day by Mrs. Mary Tennant, of Blackball, against the Blackball Coal Company, on account of the death of her husband, Duncan Tennant, as a result of injuries received while working in defendants' mine on October 9, 1927.

Tennant was an underviewer, and entered the mine between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. He was expected to attend a lecture about 9 a.m., but he was not present. A search was instituted, and he was found about 2 p.m. pinned under a fall from the roof, about five minutes' walk from the mine entrance.

For the plaintiff evidence was given showing that Tennant died from shock, and that had he been extricated sooner he would have recovered. Negligence was alleged on two grounds—that the inspection of the mine was made alone, and that assistance was not available when the accident occurred, and that the defendant company failed to provide telephonic communication throughout the mine.

For the defence it was contended no evidence had been called to show that it was negligent for the underviewer to enter the mine without a mate. There was no onus upon a coal company to instal communication between the various sections of the mine and the surface, but only between the end of the main haulage road and the surface.

The warden said there was no occation to submit the case to the assessors. The defendant company had done all required of it, and there was no evidence of negligence. There was no other course than to give judgment for defendants with costs.