CONTRACTORS SUED

Greymouth Evening Star, 10 August 1928, Page 5

CONTRACTORS SUED

YOUTH’S DAMAGED HAND.

LPer Press Association.) AUCKLAND, AUgUBt 9A claim for £lOOO general damages, and £l6 special damages, was made before Judge Blair and a jury, by Arthur Frederick Rose, aged 18, by his guardian, W. A. Rose, against Tom Grinter, Frank G. Grinter and James A. Grinter, drainage contractors for the loss of all the fingers of the left hand, by the explosion of detonators. ... George Rose, brother of plaintiff, said that the same afternoon as the accident occurred, a man found two Ettore detonators lying near the contractors’ sheds. William Rose, another brother, said that while levelling out some filling In his father’s backyard, supplied by the contractors, he found a detonator with fuse attached. ' Replying to the Judge, he admitted the filling was surfaced with scoria, which came from somewhere other than the tunnel works. Leonard Ivan Keat, said that he had seen fuses and gelignite, but not detonators, placed outside the mouth of the tunnel before the date of the accident. *

Mr. Northcroft, in opening for the defence, said that in his opinion, the boys had known very well what the detonators were. He would call evidence to show how carefully explosives had been used and stored. The Clerk of Works to the Drainage Board, for which the work had been done, denied the statement that explosives were carried in open kerosene tins.