HOSPITAL BOARD SUED

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21907, 7 October 1936, Page 7

HOSPITAL BOARD SUED

£l6O DAMAGES AWARDED

A RESERVED JUDGMENT

Damages to the amount of £l6O were awarded to Caroline Thomas,, a married woman, who claimed £3(W damages from the North Canterbury Hospital. Board in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. A reserved judgment was given by Mr F. F. Reid, S.M.

The plaintiff claimed damages in excess Of £IOO which had already been paid in by the defendant board. When an inmate of the public hospital she had been badly burnt on the thigh by a hot-water bottle placed there when she was unconscious and coming out of an anaesthetic. In entering Judgment for the plain* tiff, the magistrate said that having regard to her status in life and to the temporary readjustment of her home life made necessary by this injury, and to the pain and discomfort occasioned her, he did not consider the amount paid in sufficiently compensated her. He added that the defendant board, as custodians of public funds, had acted properly in paying in only £IOO, but he considered that the board was probably unaware of the extent of the damage. He would enter judgment in favour of plaintiff for the sum of £l6O and costs, from which the amount previously paid in was to be deducted.