SUPREME COURT Lyttelton Watersider Seeks £45,000 General Damages

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31341, 11 April 1967, Page 12

SUPREME COURT Lyttelton Watersider Seeks £45,000 General Damages

The sum of £45,000 general damages was sought in the Supreme Court yesterday by Richard Hampstead, a Lyttelton watersider, who suffered a broken back when a heavy wooden cargo tray fell 40ft down a hold and struck him during unloading operations in the cargo vessel Elin Haven on June 1, 1965. As a result of the accident, Hampstead is paralysed from the waist down, and is confined to a wheelchair. Hampstead, represented by Mr B. McClelland, with him Mr A. P. C. Tipping, is suing three defendant parties—Pitcaithly’s, Ltd., customs and shipping agents (MrT. Eichelbaum, of Wellington), the Lyttelton Harbour Board (Mr R. P. Thompson, with him Mr C. B. Atkinson), and Kinsey and Company, Ltd., shipping agents and stevedores (Mr R. W. Edgley)—in a case being tried before Mr Justice Wilson and a jury of 12. Hampstead claims negligence by a Lyttelton Harbour Board crane-driver, or by Kinsey and Company's hatchman, or by both—and sues Pitcaithly’s as hirer of the crane on behalf of the ship’s Auckland agents. The case, in which the plaintiff will call 11 witnesses, is expected to last all this week. Accident Outlined

The accident occurred, said Mr McClelland, when the crane-driver, instead of positioning an empty cargo tray clear of the hatch, struck the hatch coaming with it as he lowered it, with the result that the 801 b tray came off the crane hook and fell 40ft down the hatch, striking Hampstead as he was bending over loading another cargo tray with cartons of books and magazines. Hampstead, struck on the back by the heavy, falling tray, had suffered “shocking injuries in the most grievous way,” Mr McClelland said. He had had his spine broken, was rushed to hospital for an emergency operation, and had spent an initial 13 months in hospital. The sum of £2OOO special damages was claimed in this respect. Mr McClelland suggested there would be no real dispute as to whether Hampstead —in no way negligent himself —should receive damages. The real dispute would be as to which of the defendants was responsible for the accident

“In fact, we are really here today because the defendants cannot agree on that among themselves,” Mr McClelland said.

Hampstead would say that while working 40ft down a hold he was entitled to expect proper care and experience on the part of the men working above him. “Tray Swinging Above”

It was Kinsey and Company’s hatchman's job to direct the Harbour Board's crane-driver in the lowering of cargo trays, said Mr McClelland. In this case, the hatchman, after looking down the hold to see what was happening below, looked up to see the empty cargo tray swinging above his own head as it came down, and had to step back out of the way to avoid being hit himself. He called out to those below to get clear, but could not stop the tray hitting the hatch coaming, coming off the crane hook, and falling 40ft on to Hampstead’s back below. Was the crane-driver negligent? Mr McClelland asked. The Harbour Board would suggest it was the hatchman’s duty to have given signals to prevent the accident happening. "This is entirely a matter for you to decide,” Mr McClelland told the jury.

In explaining details fo the plaintiff’s claim, under the heads of financial loss, pain and suffering undergone, and loss of enjoyment of life, Mr McClelland said it would be hard to imagine anything worse than the crippling injuries Hampstead had suffered, and yet he had shown tremendous courage. A single man, 41 years of age, he was now confined to a wheelchair, and although he went to work by taxi every morning to tend an addressograph machine at Lane, Walker, Rudkin, Ltd., he still had to undergo hospital treatment every afternoon. He had to suffer all the discomforts and problems of a person crippled from the waist down, and yet lived alone and fended for himself. Hatchmen’s Evidence

The first of the plaintiff’s witnesses, Frederick Benjamin Wells, the watersider

who had been acting as hatchman with Hampstead’s gang at the time of the accident, gave evidence as outlined by Mr McClelland. When he had had to get clear of the swinging cargo tray, he had given no signal to stop, or lower it, to the crane-driver. Cross-examined, Wells said he had not been watching the incoming cargo tray all the way to the hatch, but had been looking down the hatch. He assumed the crane-driver would be all right. Mr Atkinson: You were watching the cargo down below, and not looking at the cargo tray at all?—Yes, I was looking down below. To Mr Edgley, Wells said that it was part of the hatchman’s job to look below to see things were safe to lower the incoming cargo tray—and that was what he was doing. The mistake lay with the crane-driver lowering the tray, and lowering it too hard. Patrick John Groves, a watersider, and a hatchman who had been - relieved by Wells just before the accident, said that the cranedriver—whom he considered somewhat inexperienced—had

been swinging the cargo tray about when bringing it in. He had warned Wells to “keep an eye on the tray.” In cross-examination by Mr Atkinson, Groves said that a crane-driver normally brought the empty cargo tray over the hatch and lowered it in, unless the hatchman stopped him by signal. But if men were working in the hold directly below, the hatchman should try not to let the crane-driver bring the tray over the hatch at all.

Groves said the waterside gang had been “not too happy” about the crane-driver but admitted no official complaint had been made. The day’s hearing was completed by the evidence of three other members of the waterside gang who had been working with HampsteadPeter Desmond James Underwood, Ronald Bruce Stenhouse, and Alfred Whiting. Underwood said that the cranedriver appeared to be a learner-driver in that he brought back the empty cargo trays over the last few feet “with a rush.”

The plaintiff himself will give evidence this morning.