£6063 AWARD

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29220, 2 June 1960, Page 7

£6063 AWARD

Damages Claim In Auckland

(New Zealand Press Association) AUCKLAND, Jupe 1.

Edward Frederick Applegate, aged 64, a fitter’s labourer, of Auckland, was awarded £5OOO general damages and £1063 special damages by a jury in the Supreme Court at Auckland today. His claim arose from an accident with a grinding machine, on which a wheel flew to pieces, while he was employed by the Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Companv, Ltd., in September, 1958.

Applegate claimed that the company was negligent because it failed to check the speed of the machine before it gave it to him to operate. Mr Justice Shorland presided.

The freezing company joined Modern Air, Ltd., and the Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd. as third party defendants, claiming that the machine was damaged while in their custody. Evidence was given that the machine, owned by the freezing company, had been hired through Modern Air, Ltd., to the Fletcher Construction Company Ltd. Evidence was also given that the governor on the machine had been damaged.

The jury was out for less than an hour. It found that the damage to the grinder did not exist at the time it was returned to the freezing company by Modern Air, Ltd., and that it was not damaged when returned by the Fletcher Construction Company, Ltd., to Modern Air, Ltd.

Noxious Weeds.—The Lyttelton Borough Council recently joined the Banks Peninsula Noxious Weeds Committee, and Crs. Gladys E. Boyd and E. A. Camfield were appointed the borough’s representatives on the committee. The committee’s inspector (Mr H. W. Fawcett) is at present inspecting the borough.