Supreme Court AWARD BY JURY IN DAMAGES CLAIM

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30079, 13 March 1963, Page 9

Supreme Court AWARD BY JURY IN DAMAGES CLAIM

As damages for injury suffered in a fall from the roof of the Queen Mary Hospital, Hanmer Springs, Ivan George Donovan was awarded £3OOO, plus £4OO special damages agreed on, by a jury in the Supreme Court last evening The jury reduced this amount by 5 per cent because of Donovan's contributory negligence in failing to exercise reasonable care in moving on to a roof crawler.

Donovan had claimed. £4500.

Mr Justice Macarthur deferred entering judgment for Donovan, pending consideration of a motion for a nonsuit by the Crown. Donovan's case was conducted by Mr B. McClelland.

No evidence was called by the Crown—there was no evidence of any negligence by the Crown, or if there was,, it was “a mere scintilla.** submitted Mr C. M. Roper, for toe AttorneyGeneral, in moving for the non-suit His Honour, however. said he was not prepared so to rule without full argument which he would hear later. Plaintiff's Evidence

In evidence, Donovan, who is 54, said he had worked about a year as a maintenance carpenter at toe Queen Mary Hospital before the accident —but was only there to “knock myself into shape” after trouble with compulsive drinking. His actual trade was toe supervision of large-scale building construction, having been a Ministry of Works building supervisor, and at another stage employed tfy Downer's, then the biggest contracting firm in New Zealand, where be prepared estimates for contracts, and supervised them. At tunes in this job he was "in charge of hall-a--m iHion pounds worth of work.”

Donovan said tie had served his apprenticeship as a carpenter in his youth, and before toe war bad run bis own building contractor’s business.

Describing the accident. Donovan said he slipped on • discoloured tile when stepping from behind a roof ventilator back on to the crawler The discolouration of tiles had not been apparent from ground level, so that he bad not bad any warning of possible danger. Nor bad there been any mention about the need for any special footwear.

Donovan said be was being paid £l4 a week gross as a maintenance carpenter at the Queen Mary Hospital, with board and lodging provided At present. he was earning £l6 8s a week gross as a costing clerk in Christchurch Thia work was not his line at ail He had bad to reject a good managerial post m the building industry because he was now unable to drive a car, as the holding of bis arms in one position on the wheel affected his back. He could also no longer carry out such supervisory jobs as with Downer’s and the Ministry of Works, as they required “100 per cent physical fitness.”

Cross-examined by Mr Roper. Donovan agreed that he had worked once on an iron roof and once on a malthoid roof at the Queen Mary Hospital, but in spite of his long experience in the building industry be had never been on a tiled roof until the day of the accident. “The way in which you moved from the ventilator back across to the roof crawler put you in a mor. precarious position, did it notr* asked Mr Roper “It was similar to the way I had got behind the ventilator." said Donovan. Mr Roper, in his address for the Crown, said that Donovan had taken none of the ordinary precautions which any ordinary person would take in such circumstances—even the amateur painting his own roof. Should

not Donovan have seen that he had sandshoes on instead of ordinary shoes? Donovan did not have the crawler in the best position—it could have been closer to the ventilator. As to the condition of the "discoloured” tiles, there was no expert evidence about them or that toe roof was unsafe or dangerous.

Finally, toe claim of £4500 was a grossly excessive one by the standards of the circumstances surrounding the case.

Addressing the jury on behalf of the plaintiff, Mr McClelland said that four years after the accident Donovan still suffered pain, and had a permanent disability, making for a restriction on his ordinary enjoyment of life —the medical evidence on this had not been challenged at all. His economic loss had already been fixed at £4OO, the amount claimed as Special damages, and there was always the possibility of his being out of work because of his injury. In his summing-up, his Honour said that the mere fact that the defence had not called evidence did not affect the onus of proof, which lay with the plaintiff. While the facts of the case were for the jury to decide, it did seem to him that toe claim of £4500 was a very large sum indeed.

The jury took an hour and a half to reach its verdict, returning at one stage to ■hear part of toe medical evidence read.