SUPREME COURT Boy Claims $16,500 From Education Bd

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32396, 8 September 1970, Page 17

SUPREME COURT Boy Claims $16,500 From Education Bd

The hearing o Board for $16,506 fo Court yesterday bef defence had just open daiy John Harris, aged 10, through his mother, Betty Dawson Harris, of Waikawa Bay, Picton, is claiming $16,000 general and $506 special damages for injuries received to his right eye which was' alleged to have been injured when it was) caught on a door hook) at the Papanui Primary! School in Winters Road,! in 1967.

Mr J. F. Burn appears for the plaintiff and Mr N. W. Williamson for the board. Mr Burn, in opening his case, said that it was contended that the board, as the controlling authority of the school at which the boy was a pupil, had a duty of care to him and that there had been a breach of that duty. The accident occurred on April 7, 1967. After the boy left his classroom to go home he ran along the playground and past the coal shed. As he passed the coal shed he caught his eye on the hook. This was one of two virtually identical hooks which were used to hold back the doors when they were open. The boy’s eyelid was torn; from the central portion; across to the outside and was! not quite torn off. He under-! went a series of operations! but the eyelid now drooped! permanently so that it re ! mained half shut.

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The boy’s appearance had been drastically affected, said Mr Burn. This did not matter greatly to him now but would in later life be quite a burden. As a result of the accident and the treatment his progress at school had been set back. He had lost a ifair amount of time at school. Sight Affected Evidence would be given that the boy had lost about [half the sight of the eye involved in the accident and that affected his ability to make out fine detail at a distance.

The hook had been fastened sft 7in from the ground and was 27in long. That meant that it would have hung to within about 40in of the ground which was about the eye level of a boy of Gary Harris’s age at the time. There were a number of other ways in which the doors could have been fastened back, Mr Burn said. If it was necessary to use a hook then it should have been a smaller hook, or it could have been placed so high that it would not injure any pupils. Thomas William Milliken, a plastic surgeon and a consul- ; tant in surgery at Burwood Hospital, said that he first saw the boy some years ago.' When he was admitted to hospital he had a tear in his) right upper eyelid and the! muscle which lifted the eyelid was torn from its origin. He had also torn the duct which drains the tears at the inner end of the upper lid. ! In the operation he re-! the eyelid and its' (layers but it was not possible to repair the muscle or the tear duct. The boy was in hospital for two weeks. In October, 1967, he readmitted the boy because the right upper eyelid had dropped and the boy was unable to elevate it. He carried out an operation to. insert a sling into the right upper! eyelid so that he would hold up the eyelid and enable him to see.

Scar Tissue “The sling was attached to the muscle on his forehead so that when he lifted the right side of his forehead it helped to raise the right upper eyelid. He had a considerable amount of scar tissue in the eyelid and it was not possible to elevate the lid completely because of the danger of pulling the lid awav from the eyeball,” Mr Milliken said. The operation was partially successful and he felt that he could improve the boy’s appearance by tightening the sling in April, 1968. This was done. In June. 1968, he reinserted a new sling into the right upper eyelid because he felt that the eyelid was still

Canterbury Education >egan in the Supreme on and a jury. The >ourt rose for the day. drooping too much and he hoped that he would be able to elevate it further. However, the extensive sear tissue in the lid still made it impossible to lift the lid to clear the vision completely.

That was the last of four operations which he performed. ■ The boy had an operation under general anaesthetic to remove the sutures from the eye two weeks after the first operation. Usually an operation of that nature was not particularly painful but the boy had a considerable amount of infection in the eyelid after the initial operation and again after one of the other operations. These two operations were accompanied by pain for approximately two weeks. On the first occasion the boy was in hospital for 15 j days, on his second admission for three weeks and for the other two operations for three to four days.

Eyelid Reddening Mr Milliken said that he examined the boy again on April 1 of this year. The right upper eyelid would not elevate completely; there was some reddening of the eyelid, a scar in the lid, and two smaller scars above the right eyebrow. “I felt that he had a moderately severe cosmetic disability with this droop of the eyelid. I think the condition of the lid will remain the same or in other words it is unlikely to change without treatment," said Mr Milliken. He would like to reassess the boy in two years because he felt, that the scar tissue in the lid might have softened and resolved and this might allow the rensertion of a sling to the inner side of the lid to tighten it up. “I think there is about a 50 per cent chance of doing the operation but again the chances of success would only be 50 per cent, making a 25 per cent chance of improvement generally," said Mr Milliken.

To Mr Williamson. Mr Milliken said that there was no question of any delay in treatment after the injury occurred.

Gary John Harris, aged 10. of Waikawa Bay. Picton, said that he was running home and he did not see the hook before the accident. A lot of people asked him about his eye. Gordon Raymond Mathieson. headmaster of the Linwood Avenue Primary School, said that in 1967 he was head master of the Papanui School in Winters Road. Cry Heard About 3.15 p.m. on April. 7. 1967. he was standing in the school grounds when he heard Gary Harris cry out. He went over to him and found that his eye was injured. An ! ambulance was called and the 1 boy was taken to hospital. lie went back to the area where the boy was injured and looked around to see what could have caused the injury. Mr Mathieson said. He felt that the only cause would have been the hooks hanging at the side of the boilerhouse door. He removed both of them.

To Mr Williamson. Mr Mathieson said that before the accident there had been no other incident involving the hooks and no complaints had been made about them. Before the accident it had not occurred to him that the hooks were a threat to the safety of the children. Opening the case for the defence Mr Williamson said that it was contended by the board that the injury was not due in any way to its negligence or negligence on the part of its teachers. The onus was on the plaintiff to prove how the accident occurred and that the teachers could have foreseen that it could have occurred and did not take action to prevent it.

Reasonably Safe

The defence claimed that the teachers did all that could reasonably be expected of them, that the school’s premises were reasonably safe for children, and that they were adequately supervised. Emotional factors and sympathy could affect the jury’s judgment and persons had to feel sympathy for Gary but the members of the jury should not allow their judgment to be swayed by sympathy, Mr Williamson said.