DAMAGES CLAIMS

Evening Post, Volume CXXIV, Issue 57, 4 September 1937, Page 10

DAMAGES CLAIMS

PROVING OF NEGLIGENCE

REFORM PROPOSED

Among the major measures that Parliament will be asked to consider during the coming session will be legislation jto do away with the need for proving negligence as the basis of damages for injuries caused by motorcars. This Bill will be in charge of the Attorney-General (the Hon. H. G. K. Mason), who, in an interview today, said that he hoped to have it made law during this session.

The proposed measure will be original as far as it concerns those parts of the world where the law is based on the common law of England," said Mr. Mason. "They comprise practically the whole of £he Englishspeaking world. It is, inWact, something new, and it is original as far as most of the world is concerned.

"There is an analogy in the Workers' Compensation Act, where a worker gets compensation for injury, irrespective of whether or not it arose 1r"om any fault on the part of the employer. Great as has been the benefit of the Workers' Compensation Act, however, it so happens—fortunately or unfortunately, from whatever point of view you may regard the question —that the proposed new Act promises to be of much greater importance, because the toll of injuries due to the motor-car is becoming so very much more prominent in ' our accident statistics.

"Irrespective of the question of public policy involved," added the Minister, "the change has become a practical necessity, owing to the complexity of issues relating to contributory negligence which' have developed in our courts in this class of case. The removal of the need for this litigation, I believe, will be of great advantage, particularly in those cases where, as so often happens, the victims are people of slender means." :