EMPLOYER NOT LIABLE

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 22

EMPLOYER NOT LIABLE

SERVANT'S DISOBEDIENCE JUDGMENT OF MAGISTRATE - . [by telegraph—OWN correspondent] MORRIXSVILLE. Friday • , A judgment of considerable interest to employers was given by Mr. S. L. Paterson, S.M., in the Morrinsville Magistrate's Court in dismissing a dase brought by, a traffic inspector ngainst W. S Goosman and Company, Limited. The company was charged with operating a motor-lorry on the To Aroha-Morrinsville main highway at a speed exceeding the maximum allowed for such vehicles. , The inspector had said that he followed the lorry between Waitoa and Tatuauui at 47 miles an hour. Hie driver, Walter Ackroyd, had given as his excuse that he was carrying a load of hot tar and had to get it to the job while it was hot. The driver had been convicted at the June sitting of the Court. - For the company it was stated that, for years there had been a notice in the company's garage that regulation Speeds had to be observed, and there was no need for Aekrdyd to exceed the £poed_ limit. The magistrate said the word "operate" in the regulations meant that the owner of the vehicle, even though he were not driving, would be liable if the employee drove at an excessive speed with his consent. "It does not follow that in every case the owner is liable," said the magistrate. A commonsense interpretation was that, if an employee broke the regulations, contrary to his employer's orders, then the employee was exceeding what he was employed to do. There was no occasion for the driver to exceed the speed limit, and therefore it could not be said the defendant company was operating the truck at an excessive speed. The information would be dismissed.