SUPREME COURT CLAIM

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 280, 25 October 1940, Page 8

SUPREME COURT CLAIM

OTAKI MOTOR ACCIDENT. A claim for £IOOO general damages and £99 7s 9d special damages, as the result of a motor accident at Otaki, occupied the attention of His Honour Air j ustice Johnston and a jury or 111 in the Supreme Court yesterday. Plaintiff was Airs Florence Gillespie, widow, of Otaki (Mr R. L. A. Creswell, with him Air B. H„Rhodes), and defendant was Robert Gilmore Dowdall, garage foreman, of Otaki (Mr T. P. C. Cleary). Plaintiff is defendant’s mother-in-law. The statement of claim set out that plaintiff was a passengei on February 5, 1939, iii a car owned by defendant and driven by his wife (plaintiff’s daughter) along Tasman Beach Road. It was alleged that the car was so negligently driven that it left the road and crashed into a creek bordering the road. The negligence wa6 alleged as excessive speed under the circumstances, driving without due care and attention, and not keeping proper control of the car. As a result of the accident plaintiff suffered injuries to both knees, cuts under the chain, on the face and inside the mouth, and other wounds and bruises with, subsequently, a severe attack of coronary thrombosis. Plaintiff was permanently partially disabled as a result of the injuries to the right knee and was liable to suffer a recurrence of coronary thrombosis. The defence advanced a general denial of the allegations of negligence on the part of the driver and alleged that tho cause of the accident was the bursting of a. tyre and not negligence. The following were the membeis of the jury; Messrs D. H. Cook (foreman), W. E. Telford, A. AlcKinlay, T. E. Drake H. W. Beck, P. F. Smythe, C. V. Wood field. L. D. Burgess, V. H. Richardson, C. H. Ax, B. B. Register and J. S Greenhow. Jhe hearing of evidence occupied most of the day.

The jury found for plaintiff, awarding £6OO general damages and the special damages claimed, £99 7s 9d.