JURY AWARDS £9000

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28447, 29 November 1957, Page 22

JURY AWARDS £9000

Claim By Widow At Greymouth. (New Zealand Press Association) GREYMOUTH, Nov. 28. A jury in the Supreme Court at Greymouth today assessed damages of £9OOO in favour of Catherine Armstrong Maskill, who had claimed £10.055 10s for the death of her husband in an accident in the Liverpool State coalmine on March 12 this year. Mr Justice Adams reserved further decision, as the question of costs would still have to be argued. Messrs W. D. Taylor and A. B. Lawson appeared for the plaintiff and Messrs F. A. Kitchingham and D. J. Tucker represented the Crown. Opening the case for the plaintiff, Mr Lawson said that as the Crown had admitted liability,, the only concern of the jury was the amount of damages it would In evidence, Mrs Maskill said her two eldest children were still at primary school. It had been the intention of her husband and herself that their son should take an engineering course with four years at technical college and further training in Christchurch. Witness gave details of her husband’s earnings for the last five years, stating that *he used to give her between £3B and £4O a fortnight. She also outlined work her husband had done in connexion with the home. Joseph Guy, rope road worker, said Maskill had been a member of the Runanga Miners’ Union of which witness was secretary. Maskill had been scrutineer for the union for which he received £25 a year. Witness said that on some occasions Maskill earned as much as £7 a day in the mine. James A. McAlister, an accountant, said a man who died at 36, as in Maskill’s case, had an expectation of life of more than another 36 years. Witness gave estimates of financial losses suffered by the widow and family as a result of Maskill’s death.