MOTOR ACCIDENTS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22053, 8 September 1933, Page 10

MOTOR ACCIDENTS

UNIDENTIFIABLE VEHICLES PLAINTIFF IN TEST CASE NONSUITED. (Per United Press Association.) WELLINGTON, September 7. On the ground that there was substantially no evidence as to how or where the accident occurred or whether there was negligence on the part of any person unknown, Neil D. Hood was nonsuited in a claim for £IOOO from insurance companies subject to the Motor Vehicles Insurance Third Party Risk Act, 1928. . Mr E. Page, S.M., intimated that the tribunal considered that it was bound by the ordinary rules of evidence, and as a matter of law he did not think the account of the accident written by the claimant before he lost his memory was admissible. Clauses 9 and 12, said Mr Page, required that before a claimant could recover he had to prove, inter alia, that a person unknown would, if ascertainable, be under legal liability to him on account of bodily injury that he had suffered —i.e., that tho accident was due to negligence of such unknown person. The tribunal did not find it necessary to decide the question whether on the evidence it was a proper inference that the vehicle said to have come into .collision with the claimant's car bore the current number plate. The tribunal thought the proper judgment to record was of nonsuit against the claimant.

The companies.- were awarded costs, but no amount was decided upon, as there was no scale of fees for such proceedings.