WORKMAN'S FALL

Evening Post, Volume CXIX, Issue 126, 30 May 1935, Page 11

WORKMAN'S FALL

CONFLICTING VERSIONS

SAFETY OF SCAFFOLDING

. Conflicting versions as to the safety of scaffolding erected round a house in Bolton Street were heard in the Supreme Court in the case in which Robert Handy is claiming £576 15s 4d from S. P. Johnson, Richard Kent, and Thomas Henry Bryant. Handy, who injured his spine when he fell from the scaffolding, was employed by Kent and Bryant as a plasterer on the job. He alleges that his fall was due to the collapse of part of the scaffolding erected by Johnson, the contractor. The defendants, on the other hand, attribute the fall to a "trap" (a misplaced plank) on to which, they allege, Handy stepped. They deny Handy's further allegation that part of the scaffolding was made of totara, and that it was the breaking of this timber that caused his -fall. The case is being heard by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers). Mr. J. D. Willis, with him Mr. H. F. Bollard, appears for the plaintiff, Mr. T. P. deary for the defendant Johnson, and Mr. W. E. Leicester for the defendants Kent and Bryant. The plaintiff, in evidence, said, that he could not remember how the accident had happened, but he denied that he had ever said the accident was, due to a "trap." Neville Hildreth, a plasterer, said he saw the scaffolding after the accident, and noticed that a putlog (a transverse support) had broken, causing one plank to fall and another to tip. The putlog, he said, was made of totara. , WITNESSES' VERSIONS. The defence, said Mr. Cleary, was that no totara putlogs were used onthe scaffolding, and that no putlog broke on the top stage of the sealfolding, from which place the plaintiff fell. On the first, point that no totara putlogs were used, he would call the two carpenters who built the scaffolding. They '■ would say that the putlogs used were Oregon and rimu, and no. totara was:, used. He would .also call the defendant Johnson, who, though he took no part in the building of the scaffolding, and visited the job from day to day, would say that no totara went into the scaffolding. iOn the day of the accident Johnson was inside the house, but the accident was observed by-three people, and two of them, curiously enough, were the carpenters who had erected the scaffolding. They were working about 12ft or so from where the accident took place. Their attention was drawn by a cry, and they saw the plaintiff, -if not in the course of his fall, at least at the moment at which he touched thte ground.. They would say that along with the plaintiff there came down the mortar board he was carrying, and a second or so later there came down one of the planks of the scaffolding, which had evidently been on the balance for a second or two after the plaintiff fell. ON THE BALANCE. In addition to these two men, Johns and Cundy, who erected the scaffolding, Mr. Cleary said he would also call a third man, Crighton, a plumber, who would say that when his attention was drawn to the accident he did not immediately rush ~ver to the plaintiff because he saw the plank on the balance, and waited for it to fall before he ventured into the realm of danger. These three witnesses would say that there was no broken putlog on the top scaffolding. Furthermore, two of the three men who went to the plaintiff's assistance would say that the first cjiiestion they asked was "What happened?" and his reply was "It was a trap." Witnesses -would say there was a broken putlog on the lower staging, but not a totara one. They would say, though none of them saw it, that this was broken by the mortar board, or by the plank, when it was falling. In addition to these witnesses counsel said he would call an inspector of scaffolding who inspected the scaffolding on a number of occasions. He did so six days before the accident and on the day following the accident He would say that the scaffolding; was built according to the regulations, and that there was no totara in it. "We suggest," concluded Mr. Cleary, "that this accident occurred in the way the plaintiff told these two men immediately after the accident; that it was caused through a ■trap." Evidence is being heard.