Damages claim against store fails

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32640, 23 June 1971, Page 21

Damages claim against store fails

Judgment for Woolworths, New Zealand, Ltd, the defendant in a claim for damages for injury suffered by a customer in 1969, was given by Mr P. L. Molineaux, S.M., in the Magistrate’s Court yesterday. The plaintiff, Violet Nixon Melvin, a widow (Mr D. H. Hicks), sought special damages of $419.13 and general damages of $749.87. The company disputed liability and was represented by Mr D. H. P. Dawson. The plaintiff said in evidence that she was about to leave the defendant’s Seaview Road shop on the afternoon of September 6, 1969, when a girl bumped a stack of woqden coffee tables near the exit and caused one to fall. The leg of one of the tables lacerated her left leg and she spent nearly three weeks in ; hospital as a result. She underwent plastic surgery and ‘ suffered considerable discom--1 fort. 5 “In my opinion the tables t were in a stupid, precarious, and hazardous position where people had to dodge them to , get out the doorway,” Mrs , Melvin said. Cross-examined by Mr Dawson, the witness said that ' three of four tables were 1 stacked one above the other. . A girl later came up to her

, and apologised for knocking • them over. ' Janet Elizabeth McMurtrie ‘ said that she was employed 1 as a shop assistant by Wool- ’ worths at the time of the ’ accident. She saw Mrs Melvin brush against the tables 1 as she was leaving the shop. ; There were three tables on . the floor and one resting on top of them. The top one was j tossed slightly by the movement, ana she (the witness) ' grabbed it before it fell. No other person was in that part j of the shop at the time. , “There is a sharp conflict ) of evidence on the stacking j of the coffee tables,” the f Magistrate said. “It is diffi- . cult to see how the position . of the tables could be coni sidered as a trap. They were . plainly to be seen and sufficii ently obvious for the ordin- . ary shopper to walk round. I I am unable to find anything . that would constitute a hazard to the shopping public. i “There is a broad conflict , of evidence on the cause of ! the injury to the plaintiff. > Either the parties are mark- > edly mistaken or one is deliberately lying. It is patently • obvious that someone is not t telling the truth or they are ! very, very mistaken, and I . am unable to resolve the conr flict,” the Magistrate said.