HEAVY DAMAGES AGAINST A RAILWAY COMPANY.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1841, 16 January 1880, Page 2

HEAVY DAMAGES AGAINST A RAILWAY COMPANY.

Lord Coleridge has tried an action brought by Dr. Phillips, a West End physician, who was in large practice, to recover damages from the London and South Western Railway Company for injuries sustained in a collision on their line in December, 1877. The case was originally tried before Mr Justice Field in April last, and £7OOO damages obtained by the plaintiff. A rule for a new trial was afterwards granted by the Court of Queen's Bench on the ground that the damages were inadequate. At the first trial the company had denied their negligence, but this on the present occasion was admitted. The plaintiff’s case was that he had been in the enjoyment of a large practice, amounting in the three years preceding the accident to about £6OOO a year, his professional expenses being about £I2OO. The result of the accident was a severe injury to the spinal cord, causing a partial paralysis of the muscles of the chest, which produced great difficulty iu breathing, accompanied with much pain. These symptoms bad not improved since the accident, though the general health of the plaintiff was somewhat better, but still existed to an extent that made it improbable that the plaintiff would ever be able to resume his practice. The plaintiff had visited various places for the sake of his health, and claimed for travelling expenses £IOOO. The plaintiff’s deposition was read, and various eminent medical men gave their opinions on his case, some being of opinion that recovery was impossible, and others that in three or four years he might recover to some extent. Sergeant Ballantyne addressed the jury for the defendants, contending that many of tha plaintiff’s symptons might be due to bis nervous condition, which would improve when the anxiety of the trial was past, especially as no injnryiexisted. Tha learned sergeant also maintained that certain large payments made by patients, amounting in the whole to about £SCOO for nine persons, could not fairly be taken into account in calculating the income of the plaintiff during the three years before the accident. Lord Coleridge, in summing up, told the jury that many recent cases left the matter much were it was before, viz., that compensation was to be what the jury thought fair. After stating that in this accident he considered the defendants singularly free from all moral blame, his lordship went through the various items for which compensation was claimed and the evidence relating to the stale of the plaintiff. With regard to the contention of the defendants as to tha omission of the payments above mentioned from the annual income, he saw no reason why the same persons or others equally rich and grateful might not have been among the plaintiff’s future patients, supposing the accident had not happened. The jury, after an absence of about twenty minutes, gave a verdict for tha plaintiff for £16,000.