VERDICT REVERSED

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 200, 21 May 1931, Page 6

VERDICT REVERSED

Action for Damages In reserved decision given in the Supreme Court yesterday, Mr. Justice Reed reversed the verdict of the. jury which last Friday found for James Grey Wight, labourer, the plaintiff in an action for damages against the Cunningham Carrying Co., Ltd. Mr. E. Parry, who had appeared for the defendant company, had moved for a nonsuit or alternatively judgment for the defendant, or a new trial. His Honour’s judgment for the defendant carried with it costs according to scale, witnesses’ expenses and disbursements. Plaintiff had alleged that while employed by the Public Works Department on widening work on the Western Hutt Road, a motor-lorry driven by an employee of the company was so negligently handled that he was crushed against a bank. He suffered a fractured pelvis, a fractured clavicle and other injuries which resulted in his being totally disabled from working.

A claim was made for £202/6/- special damages, including loss of wages for 30 weeks at £4/8/- a week, and £lOOO general damages, which the jury had reduced to £250.

Although the jury found for the plaintiff because “the driver failed to see that the man he saw on the road had reached safety,’’ his Honour thought that under the circumstances there had been no such duty cast upon the driver.