DAMAGES AWARDED

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 8, 9 July 1938, Page 13

DAMAGES AWARDED

SERVICE-CAR ACCIDENT

OTHER PARTY TO BLAME

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) DUNEDIN, July 8.

After inspecting the scene of an accident in Kawarau Gorge yesterday Mr. Justice Northcroft sat again today to hear further evidence in a case in which the Mount Cook and Southern Lakes Tourist Company, Alexander Grant Wigley (driver of the company's service car which plunged from the road), and H. H. Walker (attorney t for Marie Van Temmens, of Sourabaya, Java, who was a passenger in the service car) claimed from Jack Beaumont Suisted and John Dickinson and Co., Ltd. (his,employers), £1001 17s 6d as damages arising from the accident. Messrs. E. J. Anderson and D. A. Solomon appeared for the plaintiffs and Messrs. J. S. Sinclair and J. P. Ward for the defendants.

His Honour said that the accident arose from an emergency and it was not easy to determine the cause of that emergency. Reviewing the facts of the case, however, he was unable to make the assumption1 that the service car was travelling at an unreasonable speed. He believed that the defendant was too far out, and that his position actually caused the emergency which arose. The plaintiffs were entitled to damages. His Honour awarded damages totalling £685 17s 6d, made up as follows:— Mount Cook Company, £328 19s; Wigley, £227 ss; Madame Van Temmens, £129 13s 6d.