LOSS OF £422 AT DEPARTMENT STORE
CLAIM AGAINST FIRM FAILS WELLINGTON, October 4. The Supreme Court, in a reserved judgment, found in favour of McKenzies (Cuba Street) Ltd., in the case involving the' loss by Mrs Ellen Helson, a widow, of Petone, of a handbag containing £422 10s in notes. A jury of four had found, as a matter of fact, that the plaintiff (Mrs Helson) had left the purse on a counter in the shop; that the bag had been handed by an employee to another woman who had claimed it, and that the employee had been negligent but not grossly negligent.
Mr Justice Hutchison said in hi 1 judgment that had only the question of negligence been put to the jury and answered in the affirmative, that might well have led to a verdict for the plaintiff, but when the subsequent question of gross negligence was answered in the negative, that, in the jury’s view the defendant company had not failed to discharge such duty of care as rested upon it as a gratuitous bailee. In his opinion, said His Honour, the jury’s findings led to judgment for the defendant.
His Honour found taht the plaintiff was negligent in walking about a busy shopping street at the time — busy Christmas shopping —with £422 10s in notes in her handbag, and so risking losing it and its contents.
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Bibliographic details
Grey River Argus, 5 October 1949, Page 8
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229LOSS OF £422 AT DEPARTMENT STORE Grey River Argus, 5 October 1949, Page 8
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