APPEAL COURT

Greymouth Evening Star, 18 June 1936, Page 2

APPEAL COURT

COMPENSATION AWARD DISPUTE. [PEB PBESB ASSOCIATION.] WELLINGTON, June 17. Addressing the Court of Appeal, on behalf of the respondents, in the ease of Hodgson v. Orr-Craig, Hawke’s Bay Meat Co., and others, Mr. W. E. Leicester said the question arose as to whether the jury’s award of £2500 as general damages for personal injuries, could he said to be excessive. The position of the Trial Judge, Mr. Justice Ostler had also to be considered in connection with his exercise of the right to vacate a judgment based on the jury’s verdict, and to order a new trial. In the present case 12 sensible man could not reasonably have awarded that sum. The jury, he said, had failed to consider right matters, and had considered wrong matters. Further they applied a wrong measure of damages. The question of the loss of the appellant’s services to her husband should not have been taken into account by the jury. It was submitted that the sum awarded amounted to an attempt to give damages on the basis of the appellant having suffered permanent deformity, and was calculated as a form of maintenance for life. The duty exercised by the Trial Judge, in taking away the verdict, was salutary, and the Court of Appeal should be slow to reverse his decision. After hearing argument in reply, the Court reserved its judgment.