ACCIDENT CLAIM

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30082, 16 March 1963, Page 14

ACCIDENT CLAIM

£270 Awarded Plaintiff

Finding that a motorist was negligent in failing to ascertain whether a following power-cyclist was endangered when his car made a left-hand turn in Moorhouse avenue, a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday awarded the power-cyclist, Frederick William Ray Duff, aged 20, a labourer, £3OO damages for injury suffered, phis £B6 Is 4d special damages, £B4 Is 4d of which were agreed on. Duff, suing through his mother, Florence Grace Lissenden Duff, had claimed £l5OO damages, plus £92 IBs lOd special damages, from Arthur Chesmar, a farmer, of Courtenay. Duff, however, was found by the jury to have been 30 per cent to blame for the accident and the sum awarded him was reduced by this amount to £270 ss. In entering judgment for £270 ss, Mr Justice Macarthur reserved the defence leave to move for a setting aside of judgment within 14 days. Costs, together with witnesses’ expenses and disbursements —as for a jury of four for two days—were allowed Duff. Duff’s case was conducted by Mr B. A. Barrer, and the case for Chesmar by Mr G. S. Brockett The claim arose from an accident at the comer of Moorhouse avenue and Stuart MiU street on October 28. 1960, when Chesmar, the jury found, in turning left from Moorhouse avenue into Stuart Mill street caused Duff to collide with his vehicle. Duff suffered concussion in the accident which he claimed had led to a slight personality change, and minor loss of memory, plus facial disfigurement through scars. The jury took three hours 10 minutes to reach its verdict.