DRIVER LIABLE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 241, 11 October 1934, Page 15

DRIVER LIABLE.

THIRD PARTY RISK. WELLINGTON WOMAN'S CLAIM INJURED WHILE TRAVELLING (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Wednesday. The Court of Appeal delivered judgment to-day in a case involving points in third-party risks under the Motor Vehicles Insurance Act, 1925. The plaintiff was Mrs. Martha Lillian Shirley, wife of Charles Herbert Shirley, of Lower Hutt, and the defendants were Alexander Malcolm Macdougall, grower's assistant, his mother, Mrs. Kathleen Rebecca Macdougall, a widow, and the Eoyal Insurance Company, Limited. In the original Supreme Court action Mrs. Shirley claimed damages from Mrs. Macdougall and her son (A. M. Macdougall) for injuries received by her when a motor car, in which she was a passenger, driven by the son and owned by his mother, ran off the road in the course of a trip to Auckland. The Full Court was asked to determine whether the Eoyal Insurance Company (joined as a defendant since the hearing of the action in the Supreme Court) was deemed to have contracted to indemnify either Mrs. Macdougall as the owner or her son as the driver of the car under the Motor Vehicles Insurance Act, 1928, from liability to pay damages to Mrs. Shirley; and whether, if the preceding question be answered in the negative, there was any liability on the part of Mrs. Macdougall to pay damages to Mrs. Shirley. The Court held that at the time of the accident the driver Macdougall was not plying for hire nor using the car in the course of the business of carrying passengers for hire and, consequently, the plaintiff was barred from recovering against the Royal Insurance Company by provisions of section C of the Motor Vehicles Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Act, 1928. Nor was she entitled to judgment against Mrs. Macdougall as liabilities created by section 3 of that Act operated only for the purposes of that Act and did not affect the common law liabilities of an owner.

Judgment was entered in favour of the plaintiff against the driver Macdougall as was agreed, but against the plaintiff in favour of Mrs. Macdougall and the Eoyal Insurance Company, Limited.