APPEAL REJECTED.

Auckland Star, Volume LXX, Issue 80, 5 April 1939, Page 7

APPEAL REJECTED.

AWARD OF DAMAGES.

UNUSUAL POSmON. EXCESSIVE, SAT JUDGES, (From Our Own Correspondent.) SYDNEY, March 30. Although the three judges of the Full Court agreed that a verdict awarding a former basic wage earner £5500 damages was excessive, by a majority decision the Court rejected the appeal of the man's employers, the Water Board. The man. Stanley Adrian Charlton, was listening-in at his home when he heard the result of the appeal during the news session and collapsed on hearing that he had won his case. C'harlton. who is only 29, was permanently incapacitated by the collapse of a tunnel in which lie was working at Ashlield and had claimed £15.000 from the Water Board for negligence. The board appealed against the verdict for £5500 on the grounds that it was against the weight of evidence, that evidence had lieen wrongfully admitted, and that the damages were excessive. iir. Justice Halse Rogers remarked that the damages, invested at 4 per cent, would return C'harlton at least the basic wage and leave the capital untouched. He held that a new trial should l>e granted. The Chief Justice (Sir Frederick Jordan) and Mr. Justice Maxwell, though agreeing that the damages were excessive, held that they were not so excessive as to warrant a re-trial. In an interview afterwards C'harlton said he was to have been married four days after his accident, two years ago. But marriage was out of the question now as the doctor said he would be a cripple for life. "I would immeasurably prefer good health and a job to the money," he said. "I enjoyed outcjpor life and sport and was an all-round athlete, keen on football, cricket, swimming and dancing.

"Xow my only recreation is an oceasional game of dominoes. Before the accident 1 weighed 13st 2lb; now I am under list. Formerly I was six feet in height; to-day I am stooped. I have been under seven operations and have to go under another."