FRIEND TO PAY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 204, 30 August 1933, Page 10

FRIEND TO PAY.

£13,000 DAMAGES. JUDGE'S DIFFICULTY. SEQUEL, TO CAR FATALITY, Thirteen thousand pounds' damage: were awarded by Mr. Justice du Parcc in the King's Bench Division, London to the widow and son of an underwrite: killed in a motor collision near Maiden head last December. The widow, Mrs. Mary Mitchell Lesli-. Wood, of Cumberland Place. W., was awarded £11,500 damage-, and her son Anthony .Tames Wood, £1500, againsl Mr. A. Gleitzman, furrier, of Knight rider Street, E.C., who was driving the car in which Mr. Arthur Frederick Wood was a. passenger when the acci dent occurred. Missed His Train. Mr. Wood had missed his train al Paddington, and his friend, Mr. Gleitz man, was driving him home to Goring on-Tliames. The car collided with a stationary lorry at Littlewick, on the London Reading Road, and Mr. Wood died fron his injuries. The owners of the lorry, the That eliam Road Transport Station, of Thatehani, near Newbury, were also defendants to the action, but Mr. Justice di; Parcq held that there had been lie negligence on their part. It was stated that Mr. Wood, whe was 30 years of age, was earning £300 C a year, and the agreed value of his estate was £4500, excluding two life policies totalling £12,100. The payment under life policies, said Mr. Justice du Parcq, did not affect the question of damages. His duty was tc shut his eyes to the fact that any sums had been received under them by the widow. "So far as the assessing of damages goes," lie added, "it is not a task which can be performed according to any rule or measure. It depends on a large number of uncertain factors. Making ;£3ooo a Year. "Mr. Wood, at the outset of his career, was making something like £3000 .1 year. lie might have gone on to make a much larger income. But human life is uncertain. He had gone through the war, and a pension was paid to him because he suffered from neurasthenia. I cannot leave out of account the possibility that the enemy, neurasthenia, might have come up again, making it difficult for him to do his work. "I have to do the best I can, and though I am not going to pretend that the result I have arrived at is completely satisfactory to myself, I have come to the conclusion that I ought to give total damages of £13,000." 3