MOTOR COLLISION

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 73, 27 March 1930, Page 6

MOTOR COLLISION

A DAUGHTER'S NEGLIGENCE

FATHER NOT LIABLE

' (By Telegraph.—Press Association.) jS'KW PTA'MOTjTir, This Day. Kcsorred judgment a\;is givou in the Supremo Court yesterday by Mr. Justice Reecl in the case in which Andrew JTreync and Thomas J^rcyno sued Charles Alfred I. Wood in the Lower Court for damages resulting from a motor collision caused by ltuby Wood, d:iughter»of defendant, being negligent. Mr. K. W. Tato, 5.M.,. awarded £295 damages, and against this decision the girl's father'appealed. /His Honour upheld the appeal, holding that-a-father was not liable at law for his daughter's negligence. The daughter. was aged 18, and' the father was not-present at the time of the aeeidoiit.;. ' His Honour said ■tha.t.jin ;t'h,ese days when motor-cars weie'iii silejr general use and largely- tieftted as;| the family cars, being" driven" by various members of 'the-' family, it appeared to hini to be against common experience that the- children of the family were engaged upon their i fatlien's business whilst in charge of a car. If, therefore, when a youth was driving his. father's ear he was on a frolic the law. should not presume to tho contrary',, and if it were desirable that the par-. ents should bo held responsible for the negligence ,of their ,'fchildren in charge of their parent's car it wa,s :the business of tiio: Legislature tp say so. The Courts sliould not b"e required' t;o;'enter into a niicrbseopical'exainin'ation'of the evidence to see whether it..was possible to' pick out something from which it might be inferred that the child was on his or her father's, business when, tho negligence took place His Honour held*that the appellant had discharged tho onus of piovmg that his daughter was not acting d^ his agent oi seivant at tho time. i y His Ilonoui oil to diacu^s the lelationships with tin1 taniily oi the \anous peisons in the car at tho time oi the collision. L\cn assuming that the onus i\as on the appellant of pioving that his daughter was not engaged on his business, he thought the evidence ■ conclusively proved that she was on her own pleasure only.. The only possible ground for ■ suggesting otherwise was that when a young girl took her cousin, a youth of her own age, out for a drive she was thereby. acting as her father's servant because that youth happened to'bo a guest in her father's house. That suggestion >was not warranted, his -Honour thought. . The appeal was, allowed with costs £7 7s in: each case arid: with Court costs. Agvthe amount' involved was substantial; and there;; was an important question of law involved, leave was grartted\to' appeals to the Court of Appeal,' /In the event of this, leave being availed 'of- -and, tiie^Qo.urt of Appeal reversing his decision, it was necessary that he should express his opinion on the question of negligence, He thought that there was evidence from-widen the Magistrate was justified;' in finding that tl^e real cause of ■the :.collision : was the negligence of Buby.'Wood. .'lf ■-■that had been the •only, point involved..,he .would have dismissed the appeal. ' .