LOSS OF EXPECTATION OF LIFE

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 140, 10 March 1938, Page 12

LOSS OF EXPECTATION OF LIFE

Amending Legislation To Be Introduced REMOVAL OF ANOMALY IN LAW Among the clauses in the Statutes Amendment Bill shortly to be down in Parliament by the. Attorney' General, Hou. 11. G. R. Mason, it is expected that there will be one amending the recently-enacted law dealing with claims by the estates of deceased persons killed in accidents in respect of pain and suffering and the loss of expectation of life. The clause will abolish these matters as grounds of damages.

In 1936, following legislation which had been passed in England, based on the report of a committee of very eminent lawyers, the New Zealand Parliament passed a Law Reform Act which rectified a number of anomalies in the law and removed many sources of injury. At the time of the passing of the New Zealand Act, a question had already arisen as to whether in one respect tlie reform relating to expectation of life had not introduced an anomaly. A case! had gone as far as the Court of Appeal in which claim was made by the representatives of a deceased woman for damages in respect of pain and suffering to which she had been subjected. The judgment of tlie Court of Appeal did not make the anomaly in the Act appear serious, but, after the passing of the New Zealand Act, the case was taken to the House of Lords, and the final judgment placed on the Act an interpretation which has given results not previously foreseen. It is held that the compensation of a person for pain and suffering which he himself undergoes and for the shortening of his life is in accord with the accepted sense of justice, but it becomes a different matter when the compensation goes to some other person, possibly a distant relative. There has also been extreme difficulty iu determining how to measure the. damages in such cases.

The anomaly and the need for its removal have been pointed out from many quarters, and the new clause will provide that where a cause of action survives for the benefit of the estate of a deceased person damages recoverable for the benefit of the estate may include any special damages, but will not include damages for pain and suffering or for any bodily or mental barm suffered or for the curtailment of any expectation of life. 'The proposed alteration will in uo way interfere with claims of dependents for loss of support upon death being wrongfully caused. They have an independent claim under the Death by Accidents Compensation Act for loss of their means of support, and that claim is not affected.