DAMAGES CLAIM

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 110, 12 May 1939, Page 16

DAMAGES CLAIM

VERDICT FOR DEFENDANT

(Special to the "Evening Post.")

PALMERSTON N., This Day,

A verdict that there was no negligence was returned by a jury in the Supreme Court yesterday at the conclusion of the case in which William James Barrett, railway clerk, of Wellington, claimed from Dr. W. Hunter Will £500 general and £162 special damages for alleged negligent treatment. Fifteen minutes' retirement was all that was needed by the jury to make its decision.

The allegations of the plaintiff were that the doctor had so unskilfully used a spinal anaesthetic needle that he had to give up the attempt and proceed with a general anaesthetic; that as a result acute lumbago had developed; and that the doctor's treatment of the lumbago had been unskilful, with the result he had suffered pain. The jury accepted the doctor's assertion that no spinal needle had been used at all and found that the treatment of the lumbago had not been unskilful. The evidence for the defence showed that while being prepared for the spinal anaesthetic Barrett's nerve had deserted him and that he had asked for the general anaesthetic.