PETITION OF RIGHT.

Manawatu Standard, Volume L, Issue 75, 24 February 1930, Page 9

PETITION OF RIGHT.

Per Press Association. NAPIER, Eeb. 21. A petition of right for damages for tlie death of his wife and the loss of an arm by his son in a railway accident at Wairoa on February 27 last year (two cases) was made in the Supreme Court at Napier to-day by Ray David Munro, the total amount claimed being £4OOO. The Crown was the respondent in the case. Mr P. J. O’Regan, of Wellington, appeared for suppliant, and Mr H. I). Lusk for the Crown. Suppliant contended that the accident had been duo to negligence on the part of the engine-driver and the guard in not seeing that the necessary precaution of stationing a man on the rear-most carriago of the train, which was going backwards, had been carried out. It was shown that a path between the rails was the only means of access to some workers’ cottages skirting the track and that for this reason more precautions should have been taken. It was alternatively alleged that the department should have provided suitable and proper fences at the side of the track.

Evidence was given as to the accident, it being shown that the child had run out on to the track and had consequently had its arm taken off, while the mother in trying to save him had been fatally injured. Cross-examina-tion revealed the fact that the child had run out only about ten feet in front of a moving train. At the conclusion of evidence for suppliant, Mr Justice Blair stated that the case had not been at all amply shown. The onus was on parents to prevent children from straying on to a railway track. Even if a guard had been stationed on the rear truck the accident could not have been avoided in the space of ten feet. Both cases were nonsuited with costs, the jury being dismissed without being called on to consider the case.