CLAIMS FOR DAMAGES.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 47, 25 February 1937, Page 6

CLAIMS FOR DAMAGES.

Pointed attention was drawn by the Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers, yesterday to the growing tendency to ask for grossly exorbitant damages when claims are being made in the Supreme Court. His Honor expressed grave disapproval of this practice, and inferentially suggested to the legal profession that each claim should have some slight relation to the circumstances. At present, he indicated, the evident idea in formulating claims is that the more one asked the more one was likely to get. His experience, and that experience both at the Bar and on the Bench is a very wide one, was that juries were not so easily hoodwinked by bolstered and ridiculous claims, and that they tried to be honest and reasonable. In many aecident eases the theory behind the claim seems to be that an insurance company will have to pay the damages awarded, and that therefore the juries will be inclined to assess high values. This cynical attitude would make justice in the civil Courts a travesty, and it is fortunate that the Chief Justice is able to indicate that the juror is not now tolerant of suggestions of this kind. His Honor's outspoken comment is timely, and should be welcomed by the legal profession as a brake upon the imaginative flights of some of their clients.