CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23687, 20 December 1938, Page 16

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES

VERDICT UPHELD COUNSEL'S CONTRARY APPLICATIONS (Pee United Press Association) WELLINGTON, Dec. 19. The finding of the jury which awarded £125 general damages and £142 Is Hd special damages to John Frededick Tweedie Brown, a carpenter, against his employer, Gordon Anderson Roberts, a contractor, was upheld by the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers) in a judgment given in the Supreme Court to-day. , . _ . . Brown was working for Roberts on the erection of a number of concrete garages at Kilbirnie on August 23 1937. His work was to plug boles in the concrete floor of the garages into which steel guides were fixed with the aid of molten sulphur. When another employee, Stephen Alexander McGuire. placed a ladle of sulphur beside him. Brown jumped back and struck a parked car, injuring his knee. Brown alleged that McGuire was negligent in so placing the sulphur without a warning, and, alternatively, that Roberts, or his foreman, was negligent in hot giving McGuire proper instructions. On the jury's verdict, counsel for Brown moved for judgment, and counsel for Roberts renewed a motion for nonsuit or, alternatively, moved for judgment for Roberts.