Award To Boy Upheld

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30937, 18 December 1965, Page 3

Award To Boy Upheld

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 17. The Court of Appeal today dismissed a appeal by the Wellington City Council against a judgment refusing an order setting aside the verdict of a jury which awarded £5414 18s damages to Geoffrey James McCarthy, aged nine. The boy was bady hurt when a detonator taken from a safe on land owned by the Wellington City Council exploded in his hand. The council, through Mr E D. Blundell, argued that the decision of the Jury should be set aside on the following grounds: (1) That the council owed no duty of care to the injured boy.

(2) That even if there was negligence, it was not a material cause of the accident. (3) That the accident was due to a new and intervening cause that the council was not responsible for. (4) That the damage was too remote. (5) That the verdict of the jury was against the weight of evidence.

In his judgment, Mr Justice North said two boys found the detonators in what they thought was an abandoned safe at the council quarry in Ngauranga gorge. They took them home where the seven-year-old brother of one of the boys who found them slept the night with the detonators under his pillow The next day, Geoffrey McCarthy, a playmate of the seven-year-old, scratched one of the detonators against the

percussion caps he used for his toy pistol, with the result that the detonator exploded, severely injuring his right hand. The jury found that the council was negligent in three respects the failure to display warning notices as to the contents of the safe, failing adequately to secure the safe to the ground, and in failing adequately and safely to store the detonators. “In my opinion, the combination of the three findings of the jury was sufficient to justify their conclusion that the council had been negligent in not taking reasonable care to ensure that the detonators were safely housed,” said his Honour.

Consenting judgments were also delivered by Mr Justice Turner and Mr Justice McCarthy.

Conditional leave to appeal to the Privy Council was granted to the council.