Supreme Court INJURY TO HAND

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 33034, 29 September 1972, Page 4

Supreme Court INJURY TO HAND

Woman given

$22,046

After a retirement of three hours and a half a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday awarded Miriama Carney, aged 45, general damages of $26,000 and special damages of $1558.10, reducible by 20 per cent for contributory negligence by the plaintiff, making a final award of $22,046.48. Mr Justice Wilson entered judgment for this amount against Mrs Carney’s former employer, W. T. Murray, Ltd, a silver and stainless steelwear manufacturer.

Mrs Carney claimed general damages of $50,000 for injuries suffered to her right hand when it was crushed in an electrically heated plastic mould at the defendant’s factory on July 27, 1970. Two fingers were amputated in hospital and two fingers will not work. She has virtually no grip in the right hand and cannot raise her right arm much above her shoulder. Messrs B. McClelland and C. A. McVeigh appeared for Mrs Carney and Messrs J. G. Leggat and I. J. D. Hall for W. T. Murray, Ltd. The special damages were not in dispute. The jury found that the accident to Mrs Carney was caused or contributed to by the negligence of the defendant company in failing to provide a proper and adequate guard for the plastic moulding press and that it was in breach of a duty imposed on it by section 17 of the Machinery Act, 1950. The jury also found that Mrs Carney’s accident was contributed to by her failure to remove her hand when with due care she would have seen that the machine was likely to injure her and by her failure to concentrate on the operation of the machine at a time when it was working. Because of those factors the jury reduced its award of total damages by 20 per cent.