CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22607, 26 June 1935, Page 6

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

AN UNUSUAL CASE ' MAGISTRATE RESERVES i DECISION (Per United Press Association) t" WELLINGTON, June 25. Claiming that she had met with ■ realalarm and serious mental and physical hurt as a result of. a car crashing. into a fence outside her house, Mary Alexander, a married woman; brought -an action against John O'Donovan,' solicitor, in the Magistrate's Court to-day. The sum of £3OO for special and general damages was the amount claimed by plaintiff. "It is a point which in my long, experience has never been met with by me before," said Mr E. D. Mosley, in reserving his judgment. -/'• The plaintiff and her husband were in bed on the ground floor of their house on the night of the accident, said counsel. His case was that the car driven by the defendant went off the road, hit the front and side of a garage, went through a fence, and finished up against a window. Both sprang from, the bed, and Mrs Alexander, who had a chronic and weak heart, collapsed on the floor and was only able to get up during the last few days. Medical evidence was given of the effects of the shock, which, it was said, must have been severe on Mrs Alexander. She had had previous trouble-with her heart, and the shock had had a grave physical effect. . *.':.. For the defence, it was stated that O'Donovan was driving a new car with unfamiliar controls and had put his foot on the accelerator instead of on the brake. The car had not come into contact with Alexander's house at all. Counsel pointed out the effect of making, a precedent for awarding damages to people who received a shock as the result of an accident. There was no duty, he said, which extended so far that the driver of a vehicle on the highway had to make provision for the occupants of every house he passed. _ : The magistrate reserved his decision.