DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21278, 3 September 1932, Page 12

DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

TRAIN PASSENGER'S INJURY NO NEGLIGENCE BY OFFICIALS [I»Y TELEGRAPH —PRESS ASSOCIATION] DUXEDIN", Friday A claim by Annie Munt, of Wellington, for £750 damages from the- Railway Department as the result of an injury caused to her foot when she was alighting from a train at Wedderburn in May, 1031, was heard in the Supreme Court recently. Plaintiff contended that the train started as sho was alighting and that the injury was caused by negligence on the part of the train officials. In his reserved judgment, delivered today, Mr. Justice Kennedy held that a passenger whose tram stopped at a station which she had never before visited could not rely upon a platform opposite the carriage, it being proved that in the Dominion trains stopped at many places where there were no platforms, or where there were platforms of inadequate length to permit of a passenger stepping on to the platform. Plaintiff alighted on the wrong side of the train, and the guard might, without negligence, assume after a reasonable lapse of time that the passengers had left the carriages, when he had no reason to believe otherwise. The action was dismissed with costs.