SUPREME COURT Action Adjourned When Plaintiff’s Father Dies

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31315, 10 March 1967, Page 10

SUPREME COURT Action Adjourned When Plaintiff’s Father Dies

An action over accident damages brought by an Abhburton farmer, George Walter Ward, had to be adjourned, part-heard, in the Supreme Court yesterday when a message was received that the plaintiffs father, and business partner, Mr C. T. A. Ward, had died.

Mr Ward senior, a retired farmer, was a former chairman of United Wheatgrowers, Ltd.

Ward was in the witnessbox, being cross-examined on his claim, when Mr Justice Wilson, on receipt of the message, announced an adjournment of the case, sine die, to enable Ward to be informed of his father’s death.

Ward’s action seeking £3BOO special damages from the Attorney-General, sued in respect of the Railways Department—was brought as a result of injuries he sufferred when unloading sheep from a waggon at the Ashburton railway yards in March, 1958.

A violent movement to the rake of trucks had pinned Ward between the sheep waggon and his lorry, crushing seven of his ribs. He was admitted to the Ashburton Hospital in a state of profound shock, and was said to have nearly died. Liability for the accident was admitted by the Railways Department, said Ward’s counsel, Mr W. A. Wilson, and general and special damages agreed on, with the exception of the item of £3BOO. This amount, said Mr Wilson, was claimed for wages and contractor’s charges that Ward’s farming partnership had had to pay because of his incapacity—as a result of the accident—to perform heavy farm work.

Ward gave evidence that he farmed a 2000-acre property at Newlands, Ashburton, in formal partnership with his father and brother. The special damages claimed, he said, represented wages and contractor’s charges over a seven-year period—from the time of his accident until the end of 1965. These had had to be paid because he himself could no longer do fencing, crutching and shearing of the store sheep brought in, and other heavy work. If he attempted it, he suffered pain in his back, and had to spend a day or two in bed to recover.

Mr N. W. Williamson (for the Attorney-General), crossexamining Ward, suggested that the farming partnership had engaged casuals for such work even before his accident. “It would have been very temporaiy,” said Ward. Mr Williamson asked what work Ward had actually done on the farm since his accident. Ward: I have done the lighter farm work. | His Honour: Can you muster?

Ward: I can go out and ■a 5? ln * mob of sheep. But if there are any heavy sheep to be lifted, I have to get someone to help. His Honour: What about Ward: I can work the gate. And dipping?—We have a sheep shower, and there is really no manual labour there. Mr Williamson put to Ward that there had been a steady increase in the farm partnership’s net profit, from £6300 in 1959 to £9650 in 1965. “I don’t know it would be any great increase when you consider inflationary tendency,” Ward said.

Ward was still under crossexamination on financial matters when the message was received that his father had died, and the action was adjourned.