Supreme Court £5656 In Damages For Back Injury

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29854, 21 June 1962, Page 7

Supreme Court £5656 In Damages For Back Injury

A former apprentice plumber was awarded £5656 17s lOd damages by a Supreme Court jury yesterday for a crippling back injury he suffered in February, 1958, when he slipped and fell from a plank at the site of the Hermitage, Mount Cook.

The jury awarded him £4BOO of the £6OOO general damages he claimed from the plumbing firm which then employed him, and also £856 17s 10d special damages. It held the plumbing firm to be wholly responsible for the accident, finding it negligent in failing to supply a wide enough gangway leading to a scaffolding, failing to provide & handrail on the gangway, and failing to provide cleats or battens on the gangway.

Terence Leslie Drake, aged 24, a garage attendant (Mr B. J. McClelland, with him Mr A. D. Holland) claimed £6OOO general damages from A. and T. Burt, Ltd., a Christchurch plumbing firm (Mr R. P. Thompson, with him Mr C. B. Atkinson) for back injuries he suffered in the fall.

Mr Justice Macarthur was on the bench. In his address to the jury, Mr Atkinson said the £6OOO claimed was excessive, and a proper sum would be something “far, far, far less.” The company strenuously denied liability, but if the jury found it was negligent at all, then Drake himself was at least 50 per cent, to blame. “Safe Access-Way”

Eye-witnesses had given entirely different accounts of the accilent from that put forward by Drake, and five witnesses had agreed that the plank on which Drake slipped was a safe, standard accessway to the scaffolding. Mr Atkinson submitted that Drake was grossly mistaken in his account of his accident. If the slope of the plank was slight, as described by the defendant’s witnesses, then it was adequate. If it was as steep as Drake claimed, then it must have been hopeless access.

If the plank was dangerous, said Mr Atkinson, then Drake must have realised the dangers—yet he went ahead and used it. Drake’s slip on the plank was nothing more than what happened on any building job where a man tripped over a stone, slipped in mud or tripped over a cleat.

Mr McClelland told the jury that court cases were not w r on by counting heads. The balance was not tipped by the number of witnesses one way or the other. A. and T. Burt’s employees had rallied round for the defence, he said, but the defence had been able to bring no expert witness to say that Drake’s building expert was wrong. He said the defence witnesses’ figures for the lengths and heights involved did not

tally in any respect with the slope of the plank as they described it. Whether Drake had been going up or down the plank when it slipped did not matter “two hoots,” said Mr McClelland. It was just as dangerous whichever way he was going.

“We aren’t asking for any fancy equipment,” he said. “Just for two nails at the top of the plank, a guard rail that could be run up in a few minutes so that you don’t injure your back if you slip—or alternatively cleats so that you don’t slip on the plank. If that had been done, this accident would not have happened." Mr McClelland said it was nonsense and plain rubbish to blame a 20-year-old apprentice 50 per cent for such an accident There was no-one to say the building expert’s assessment was wrong "except a bunch of plumbers.” His Honour adjourned the matter for judgment to be entered at a later date.