DAMAGES AWARDED.

Hawera Star, Volume XLVI, 13 November 1926, Page 5

DAMAGES AWARDED.

CLAIM AGAINST MOTORIST SUCCEEDS. JUDGE EXPLAINS THE LAW. (by TELEGRAPH—PRESS ASSOCIATION.) PALMERSTON N., Nov. 12. At the conclusion of the civil action in the Supreme Court in which C. D. Ingle sued F. Lethbridge for damages arising out of a motor accident at Feilding on July 31, His Honor Mr Justice Reed made comments upon the fact that, whereas the jury iu a. criminal action had returned a verdict of not guilty, the jury in the civil action had found {Lethbridge negligent and awarded damages in consequence. “At first sight,” said his Honour, “it might appear as if the verdicts of the two juries were inconsistent, but tins is not so. In reality the principles of the law of negligence are the same whether applied at civil or criminal trials, but they are not enforced with the same rigidity against persons accused of a criminal offence as against a party in a civil action. “As I understand your verdict in this case, you have found that it was an act of negligence to drive a, motor car with only one lamp, that the result of having only one lamp was that the car was driven further over to the left hand side of the road than would othrwise have l>een the case, and that but for being so far over the accident would not have happened. Therefore, you attribute the accident to the original negligence of having only one lamp. “This is guite logical and in accordance with the law as defined by the English Court of Appeal that once negligence is established the doer is liable for any injurious consequences that may be shown to result from such negligence, whether or not the possibilities of such injurious consequences would or would not be in the reasonable contemplation of the doer of the act.

“When, however, a jury is asked to find the doer of the act criminally responsible, it is a different matter.. A jury in that is- entitled to take into consideration the remoteness of the injury from the negligent act, and to decline to convict when in the mind of a reasonable man the consequences are not such as would he contemplated as likely to result. “In the present case it would hardly he. potent to the mind of any reasonable man that in negligently omitting to carrv a second lamp the result would be that, through endeavouring to avoid the only danger that would present itself, a collision with vehicles coming in the opposite way,, a person should be run over on the side of the road, “I may sav that I agree, entirely with the verdicts of both juries.” concluded his Honour. In the "ivil claim by C. D. Ingle, a freezing worker, of Aorangi. against Frank W. Lethbridge for £3OOO damages. arising out of a car accident in which the plaintiff’s brother was mnrtallv hurt, and he himself severely injured. the jury awarded £3OO. with costs, disbursements and witnesses’ expenses. Yesterday the defendant . was acquitted ou a charge of criminal negligence arising out of the affair.