LEAVE TO SUE Injuries Caused By Unidentified Truck

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31167, 17 September 1966, Page 3

LEAVE TO SUE Injuries Caused By Unidentified Truck

(New Zealand Press Association!

WELLINGTON, September 16.

Leave to a motorist to bring an action for damages where the other vehicle cannot be identified was granted by Mr Justice McGregor in a judgment delivered today. It was the first such application under the Transport Amendment Act, 1963.

Leave to bring the action was granted to Clarence Howard Pool, a mechanic assembler, of Upper Hutt. The intended defendant is the general manager of the State Insurance Office. His Honour said a stone weighing seven pounds falling from a truck passing Pool's car in an opposite direction penetrated his windscreen and struck him on the head causing a severe fracture of the skull. The identity of the truck could not be established. “The obvious intention of the Legislature was that where a person suffering an injury is deprived of ability to enforce his common law rights owing to the fact that a wrong-doer cannot be identified, he should still be en-

titled to indemnity for his injuries,” said his Honour. “The establishment of thirdparty insurance and the extension of such insurance to cover claims against unidentified drivers is intended to effect this result.

“A pool is constituted, subscribed to by all insurance companies, from which the claim is paid, and such pool is administered by the State Insurance Office manager as the nominal defendant. “While there has been a substantial delay in the present case in supplying the second declaration required by the intended defendant, I do not think the intended plaintiff’s delay is here inexcusable, and I take the view that it is just to grant leave to bring the action.”