CLAIM BY WIDOW

Auckland Star, Volume LXXIV, Issue 197, 20 August 1943, Page 4

CLAIM BY WIDOW

DEATH OF HUSBAND SEQUEL TO CRANE ACCIDENT The compensation claim of £4029 by Mrs. Barbara Elizabeth Barnes (Mr. North and Mr. Simpson) against the Auckland Harbour Board (Mr. Hamer) and Booth, Macdonald and Co., Ltd. (Mr. Cocker and Mr. Goldstine), arising out of the death by accident of plaintiff's husband while driving a crane on the wharf, was continued before Mr. Justice Callan and a jury to-day. Evidence on behalf of the bor d as to responsibility for the mode of working cargo from the shed was heard, and Frederick Twigden submitted estimates of the probable pecuniary loss suffered by plaintiff through her husband's death. Fcssie H. Tackerberry, inspector of machinery for the Harbour Board, said this was the first time in his knowledge that the battery crane was used out of the shed doorway, and he would say that in the conditions it was dangerous. In his view the accident happened because the front wheels of the crane were brought to the edge of the shutter and in manoeuvring the steel cargo to get it on the lorry the wheels slipped over the ledge and the whole crane skidded over. Two safe alternative methods of doing the job would have been either to deposit the steel in the doorway, and then go outside and lift it en to the lorry, or else to run the steel on the level through another door to the lorry and swing it on the lorry.

Witness said he thought Barnes was wrong in taking the mobile crane up to this doer in the condition of the floor. All crane drivers had discretion to stop work at any time, according to their judgment of the risk. The mobile cranes were used much more by hirers than by the Harbour Board, and in most cases a Harbour Board official could not be sufficiently informed of the class of work required to be able to give directions to the crane driver on the method of working. (Proceeding)