APPEAL HEARING BEGUN

Otago Daily Times, Issue 27345, 22 March 1950, Page 6

APPEAL HEARING BEGUN

Granting Of New Trial Waterside Worker’s Claim PA WELLINGTON, Mar. 21. The Court of Appeal has commenced the hearing of an appeal by the Shaw Savill and Albion Company, Ltd., against the whole s 'of the judgment of Mr Justice Cornish in the Supreme Court in Wellington on December 16, 1949, on a motion for a new trial brought by Aubrey Bruce Skilton, of Wellington, a waterside worker. Skilton issued a statement of claim alleging that he had sustained an injury to his ankle while employed by the Shaw Savill and Albion Company on the Akaroa, in Wellington on December 14, 1948. It was alleged that the company was negligent in permitting oil to accumulate on the ship’s deck and that this caused the accident; During the hearing in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Cornish and a jury at Wellington on June 2, 1949, Skilton was cross-examined by Mr Blundell, for the shipping company, as to his being national organiser of the New Zealand Communist Party. In summing up to the jury, Mr Justice Cornish stated, inter alia, “We will not take into consideration the fact that the plaintiff is a Communist, and I do not understand Mr Blundell to suggest that we should consider that alone. What Mr Blundell was attempting to show in his cross-examination was this —and that is why I allowed his questions on the point—that if the plaintiff had another source of remuneration —e.g., in being a prominent official of the Communist movement—and if that movement paid salaries to such officials, then the plaintiff might have been able to earn quite as substantial sums in the future as perhaps in the past. If a man can make money in an avocation such as speaking or singing, and if his vocation ceases as a result of the accident, that is a matter to be taken into account in assessing damages. However, it does not seem as if these top positions in the Compiunist movement are carrying big salaries just at present in New Zealand, and I hope they never will.

“That is my personal hope. I hope that the plaintiff will remain for a long time one of the small minority. Here, a man’s claim is fairly adjudicated on by the judge and jury, whatever his politics may be, but that does not happen everywhere in the world. Plaintiff’s political opinions have nothing whatever to do with the issues before the court, whether he is a Communist, a Liberal or a Conservative.”

The jury found for the defendant company, and Skilton moved for a new trial upon the grounds that counsel for the company had asked questions prejudicial to the plaintiff concerning his political affiliations, that the judge had misdirected the jury and that the jury’s verdict was against the weight of evidence and was influenced by defendant counsel’s irrelevant cross-examination. Mr Justice Cornish ordered a new trial.

The ground for the present appeal is that Mr Justice Cornish erred in fact and in law in granting a new trial on Skilton’s motion.