MOTOR ACCIDENT AWARDS

Greymouth Evening Star, 13 August 1935, Page 2

MOTOR ACCIDENT AWARDS

COUNSEL CRITICISES JURIES. [pee pbess association.] WELLINGTON, August 12. A.n interestinn point was raised by Mr. O'Leary, K.C., hi the Supremo Court, to-day, when he contended that the courts should exercise some control over juries’ assessments of damages in motor accident cases, in whicli it was clear that punitive damages had been awarded. The case was one in which Mr. O’Leary applied for a new trial, where a boy had been awarded £9OO, the plaintiff having sustained a fractured skull as the result of being knocked off a bicycle by a motor car. The driver of tile car failed to stop after the accident, and Mr. O’Leary submitted that this fact influenccl the jury in its assessment of damages. The defendant in the action. Mary Josephine White, was the owner of the car, but was not the driver at the time of the accident. Plaintiff was Harry Kitchener Collins. Mr O’Leary said it was almost common place now that where a case went to the jury, it was almost impossible to get a verdict for the defendant on the main issue, but one knew that in cases where there was very grave doubt as to whether defendant should be mulcted in damages at ail, one found the damages assessed were moderate. There was th? second class of case where the liability was definitely fixed on the evidence, and in most of these cases, a liberal and generous award was made to plaintiff. Then there was lite third type of east's of which Mr. O'Leary submitted the present was one. where there were circumstances whicli the jury resented, such as those when the driver of the defendant's car drove away from the scene of the accident and endeavoured to keep his connection with the matt<> secret . In cases of that kind, Mr. O'Leary contended that the jury awarded punitive damages through resenting the action of the driver. Mr. Justice Smith reserved his dec;, slop.

KILLED BY I'NKNOWN. AUCKLAND. August IT “It is unfortunate that the police 1 inquiries have not traced the driver cf the vehicle who knocked down tindeceased," said the Coroner at the in-; quest concerning the death of James Edward Smith, 11. of I’apatoi-toe. who was found on June 7 on tin- Great South Road seriously injured, he.-td--his smashed bicycle-. Counsel for the widow said tinr< , was special provision in such cases for; compensation to be paid, but it wa ■ | necessary to prove that death was dm-, to being struck by a motor vehicle. j “There is no qm-.-tion of that.’’ .-aid the Coroner, who returned a verdict that death v. .i . dm- to itas gangrene, following deceased I" tin: knocked d-'wn Ly a motor vehicle, the driver which was tinidentiimd.