AN UNSATISFACTORY LAW

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 3194, 19 September 1917, Page 6

AN UNSATISFACTORY LAW

DISCUSSED BY SUPREME COURT 1 JUDGE, , By Telegraph—Press Association. Napier, September 18. In a judgment just delivered at the Supreme Court, Napier, in the case of Lyttle and Wright versus tlia Borough ot Hastings, Mr. Justice Edwards said that the plaintiffs had suffered a hardship in not having their case decided on its merits owing to tho unsatisfactory state of the law relating to claims for compensation against public bodies in respect of nuisanccs and similar causes of action arising out of public works. The plaintiffs claimed damages in respect of the alleged bursting of a borough drain through the working of (he pump used two-thirds of the way down the drain where the drainago was dammed back," raised several feet, and then allowed to fall, the force of gravity being thus utilised to overcome the pressure of flood waters banking up the sewage. Plaintiffs allowed that their crops wero damaged and their land permanently injured by the bursting of the drain and the escape of sewage consequent on the working of the' gravity pump. A pumping station had been erected in 1911, an.-l there was then no suggestion or probability that any damage would result In anyone through the wort. It was not till May. 1916, that trouble arose. The ■ PuMic Works Act debarred a claim after 1!)J5 so that plaintiffs through the defective state of the law were without remedy. His Honour stated that the. defect had been several times referred to by the Bench, in his own judgments and those of other Judges, but the Act hnd been twice consolidated and several times amended since without giving effect to those decisions. His Honour suggests amending the drastic provisions of Hie statute either by materially extending Hie period within which a claim may be preferred or by making the period of limitation run from the first serious actual damage and not from the completion of the work.