“PUNITIVE DAMAGES”

Northern Advocate, 13 August 1935, Page 8

“PUNITIVE DAMAGES”

COUNSEL’S CONTENTION. HOW JURIES ARE INFLUENCED. APPLICATION FOR NEW TRIAL. [Per Press Association. — Copyright .l WELLINGTON, This Day. An interesting point was raised by Mr H. F. O’Leary, K.C., in the Supreme Court today, when he contended that courts should exercise some control over juries’ assessments of damages in motor car assessments, in which it was clear that punitive damages had been awarded. The case was one in which Mr O’Leary applied for a new trial. A boy had been awarded £9OO for having suffered a fracture of the skull as the result of being knocked off his bicycle by a motor.car, the driver of which did not stop after the accident, and Mr O’Leary submitted that this fact had influenced the jury in its assessment of damages. The defendant in the action, Mary White, was the owner of the car, but was not the driver at the time of the accident. The plaintiff was Harry Kitchener Collins. Mr O’Leary said it was almost a corhmonplace now that where a case went to a jury it was almost impossible to get a verdict for the defendant on the main issues, but one knew that in cases where there was a very grave doubt whether defendant should be mulcted in damages at all, one found that the damages assessed were moderate. There was 'a second class of case where the liability was definitely fixed on the evidence, and, in most of these cases, a liberal and generous award was made to plaintiff. Then there was a third type of case, of which Mr O’Leary submitted the present one was an example, where there were circumstances which the jury resented, such as arose when the driver of defendant’s car drove away from the scene of the accident, and endeavoured to keep his connection with the matter a secret. In cases of that kind, Mr O’Leary contended, the jury awarded punitive damages through resenting the action of the driver. Mr Justice Smith reserved his decision.