Supreme Court Watersider Claims £1250 Damages For Injuries

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 22

Supreme Court Watersider Claims £1250 Damages For Injuries

Three railway waggons were being hauled along the wharf at Lyttelton by a capstan, rope and hook when the hook broke loose and flew through the air on the end of the rope. It struck a waterside worker, knocked him flat and broke his leg, a Jury was told in the Supreme Court yesterday. The watersider, Harry Williams, aged 55, a married man with two young children, seeks £1250 general damages for the injury he suffered, claiming that the accident, on June 3, 1958, was due to the negligence of both the Railways Department and the Union Steam Ship Company, Ltd., or either one of them. The plaintiff also claims £6BO 3s 2d for loss of wages and hospital expenses. Mir Justice Macarthur is on the bench. Mr B. McCteUand, with him Mr A D. Holland, appears for the plaintiff. Mr C. M. Roper appears for the Attorney-General, named as first defendant through the Railways Department, and Mr R. W. Edgley appears for the Union Steam Ship Company, Ltd., named as second defendant

Evidence .for the plaintiff was uncompleted when the Court ad’ourned until today. The plaintiff was engaged on No. 7 wharf in the discharging of cargo from the Kopua and was in the employ of the Railways Department when the accident happened, Mir McClelland told the jury.

On this day, the plaintiff would say that he was ■ a sheetman on the wharf, a man responsible for securing unloaded cargo on the railway wagons and tying down tarpaulins over the waggons. Telegraph poles and timber were being unloaded from the ship. Plaintiff was securing a load of poles in a U-B flat top railway waggon by tightening chains over them. Hook Came Off

There was another rake of trucks on the wharf and a “ropeman” put a hook on one of three trucks to haul them off the wharf. The hook was attached by a hemp rope to a capstan—a winch driven by an electric motor on ‘he wharf.

The “capstan man” began to haul the three wagons down. The hook became detached from the railway waggon, flew through the air and hit the plaintiff who was standing about 20 yards further down the wharf from the capstan with his back turned to it. The hook broke the plaintiff’s right ankle. “The plaintiff will say that he was shown a metal bracket (produced in Court) just after the accident. The metal bracket is from the U-B waggon that was being hauled along,” said Mr McClelland.

“The plaintiff will say that the hook must have been attached to this bracket, which is used for tying down loads on waggons and not for hauling waggons. < “The plaintiff will say that there is a D bracket on the side of the waggons, or underneath them, which is for hauling waggons,” counsel said. The plaintiff’s case was that the movement of the railway waggons was under the control of the shipping company and had nothing to do with the plaintiff.

The accident could not have happened in this way without someone being negligent, and that, if the plaintiff showed the accident to have happened in this way, it was up to the first and second defendants to show there had been no negligence. The ropeman was employed by the shipping company and the capstan man by the railways. Counsel said that the plaintiff's broken leg became infected and the bones took a long time to knit together. He was off work for 14 months and was paid compensation. The £350 special damage's claimed for loss of wages represented the difference between hxs weekly compensation payment and his wage had he been working. Allocation of Blame *

“The plaintiff has not suffered any permanent injury although his ankle aches in cold weather and after a long day’s work. However, he has had to give up refereeing senior League matches and deerstalking. “For the plaintiff, it is submitted that there will be no

difficulty in deciding there has been an accident through negligence, but the jury> will only have to decide which one, or both, of the defendants are to blame and will have to pay,” counsel concluded.

The plaintiff gave evidence that he “heard a bang, and next thing I knew 1 was flat on my back.” The capstan hook had hit him. Cross-examined by Mr Roper, plaintiff said he had been a watersider for 19 years. He had been capstan man hundreds of times.

“I have never seen a hook put on the tying down bracket on a railway waggon. The D bracket is the one for hauling.

“I know the capstan motor fuses if overloaded. I have fused the capstan dozens of times and broken dozens of ropes through overloading but I have never broken a D bracket and never seen one broken,” plaintiff said to further questions. He said he had never been a ropeman. A ropeman was employed by the shipping companies and employed from a special panel of watersiders. Plaintiff, to Mr Edgley, denied that he had been warned before the rake of trucks was moved. He said he had made a statement in front of Walter Smith, the ropeman at the time, about the accident but had not talked about it other) zise. )