DEATH OF DAUGHTER.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20716, 8 November 1930, Page 13

DEATH OF DAUGHTER.

KILLED BY MOTOR-CAR.

CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION. JURY AWARDS PARENTS £SOO. [BT TELEGRAPH.—OWN CORRESPONDENT.] CHRISTCRURCH, Friday. A claim for £ISOO damages in an action which arose out of an accident on Riccarton Road on August 2, when Elizabeth Irvine was killed as a result of her bicycle being run into by a motorcar driven by Edgar Clement Mann, was heard in the Supreme Court before, tho Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myers. The plaintiffs, who were represented by Mr. A. T. Donnelly, were Joseph Irvine, a retired bootmaker, and Sarah Jane Irvine, his wife. Mr. C. S. Thomas appeared for the defendant Mann. The statement of claim set out that tho plaintiffs had suffered damage by reason of the death of their daughter. It was alleged that tho defendant had so negligently and unskilfully driven his car that it had been driven against and struck Elizabeth Irvine, causing her death. Mr. Donnelly, in outlining the facts of the case, said the negligence was admitted by tho defendant. The plaintiffs claimed that they could establish the fact of pecuniary loss through the death of their daughter. They were each about 69 years of age, and their daughter had helped them for a number of years, with money and in other ways, to such an extent that they could have looked forward to some help from her for the rest of their lives.

The daughter had been earning about £4 a week, and paying £2 a week to her parents regularly, while occasionally goods wore given them. When the parents' house had been burned down some years ago, she had bought furniture and out it in the home. Since tho daughter's death the mother had been compelled to engage a woman two days a week to do the work which the daughter used to. do in her spate time. His Honor said it. was not an ordinary case for damages in the strictly legal sense. In fact, it concerned compensation rather than damages. It was admitted that defendant was liable, and fi'o was prepared to pay, but tho question in dispute was the amount of tho liability. After retiring the jury found that plaintiffs were entitled to £SOO, and judgment was given accordingly, with costs according to scale/