SUPREME COURT Counsel’s Addresses Today In £45,000 Damages Claim

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31344, 14 April 1967, Page 7

SUPREME COURT Counsel’s Addresses Today In £45,000 Damages Claim

Evidence was completed yesterday in an injured watersider’s Supreme Court claim for £45,000 damages, after the calling of 17 witnesses —10 for the plaintiff, Richard Hampstead, and seven for two defendant parties, the Lyttelton Harbour Board and Kinsey and Company, Ltd.

Counsel will address the jury, and Mr Justice Wilson will sum up the four-day case to the jury, today. The first defendant in the action, Pitcaithly’s, Ltd., customs and shipping agents (Mr T. Eichelbaum), was granted permission to withdraw from the trial yesterday afternoon after other counsel had agreed it was not concerned in the issues to be determined by the jury. Hampstead claims £45,000 damages as a result of suffering a broken spine, with paralysis from the waist down, when he was struck by a heavy cargo tray which fell into the hold of the vessel Elin Haven while unloading at Lyttelton on June 1, 1965. Hampstead was in a waterside gang working beneath a hatchway when a Lyttelton Harbour Board crane-driver struck the hatch coaming with an incoming empty cargo tray, which came off the crane hook and fell down 40ft on to Hampstead’s back. His case is conducted by Mr B. McClelland, with him Mr A. P. C. Tipping, that for the Lyttelton Harbour Board by Mr R. P. Thompson, with him Mr C. B. Atkinson, and that for Kinsey and Company by Mr R. W. Edgley. Safety Officer’s Evidence Evidence of crane-driving associated with cargo-hand-ling operations occupied almost all yesterday’s hearing. James Samuel Hughes, safety officer of the Lyttelton Watersiders’ Union, said it was considered safe practice to bring an empty cargo tray into the hold of a ship, even if men were standing or working directly below the hatch —but not a loaded tray, he said.

Witness said that during unloading operations —as being carried out on the day of the accident—no signal was required of a hatchman to a crane-driver until the former took control as an empty tray was disappearing into the hatch.

Under cross-examination by Mr Thompson, he said that the hatchman was within safe practice on the day of the accident in not having watched the incoming cargo tray—said to have been

swinging—all the way towards the hatch. The witness, a former member of the National Waterfront Safety Council, and a walking delegate of his union, said that a hatchman’s first duty was to the safety of men working below in the hold. His second duty was to the crane-driver and the operation of the crane. Commenting on the accident to Hampstead, witness said there had previously been occasions at Lyttelton when a hatchman’s own safety was threatened. “I’ve had to run myself,” he said. Questioned about the cranedriver having struck the hatch coaming of the Elin Haven when the hatchman, Wells, was looking at neither the crane nor the cargo tray, witness said: “I would say Mr Wells was getting out of the way.”

He agreed that as the ultimate result of the tray coming into the hatchway without being watched, Hampstead had been injured—but said that the tray would have struck the hatch coaming and fallen off the crane hook and down the hold, even if Wells had been watching. Mr Thompson: Was Mr Wells, in not watching the crane-driver or the load, acting as a careful and prudent hatchman? Witness: Yes, he was also doing his other duties. Do you think he was a prudent and careful hatchman? Yes or no? Yes. Morning Evidence The morning’s hearing was occupied by extensive evidence and cross-examination on crane-driving given by two witnesses called by the Lyttelton Harbour Board—Cyril Edward Booth, the board’s cargo services clerk, and Keith William Louttit, its senior crane foreman. Booth, himself a cranedriver of 29 years’ experience, said that when approaching any dangerous position the crane-driver dare not take his eyes off the load and the hatchman, who was definitely in control of the cranedriver’s movements. The driver could not therefore watch the crane’s luff indicator and the load and the hatchman simultaneously. Questioned on the details of loading in and out of a ship’s hold, Booth said that the crane-driver did not “plumb the ball” in the centre of the hatch but over the spot in the hold where the load was being picked up, automatically assuming the hatch was clear if not stopped 1 by signal from the hatchman.

In these operations, said Booth, cargo trays being returned to the hold frequently struck hatch coamings, but it was “most unusual” for one to come off the crane hook. During a long cross-exam-ination by Mr McClelland, Booth said that the luff indicator on the crane was only an approximate guide to the driver—he did not slavishly follow the indicator because he was often “catching swing” as he lowered his load. He agreed, however, that a cranedriver could not judge a luffing swing closer than an accuracy of 3 to 4 feet. Louttit, who said it was his decision to place the cranedriver involved in the accident, Baxter, on the Harbour Board’s roster of drivers, said it would most certainly have continued to employ him had he wished to continue cranedriving. Baxter had been “in not too good a way” with the shock of the accident, and was unwilling to drive again. On the cargo working of the Elin Haven, Louttit said he would lower loads in the position indicated by the hatchman. When returning an empty cargo tray to the hold, the crane-driver should not let it go out of sight below the hatch coaming without stopping and waiting for the hatchman’s signal. No assumption could be made about the position of the men in the hold. “The risk is too great to continue lowering by yourself,” Louttit said. If the hatchman gave no signal, the crane-driver should stop.

Mr Atkinson: Once the men below have cleared the square of the hatch, is it safe for the crane to come over? Witness: That’s for the hatchman to say. Under cross-examination by Mr Edgely, Louttit agreed that the hatchman’s “dive for safety, shoving the Gordon and Gotch man with him,” was not a typical waterfront incident Walter Arnold Hadlee, a public accountant, called by Mr Edgley, also gave evidence on financial aspects of the claim.