DAMAGES ASSESSMENTS

Southland Times, Issue 25361, 13 August 1935, Page 6

DAMAGES ASSESSMENTS

CONTROL OF JURIES. ADVOCACY by counsel. (Per United Press Association.) Wellington, August 12. An interesting point was raised by Mr H. F. O’Leary, K.C., in the Supreme Court to-day when he contended that Courts should exercise some control over juries’ assessments of damages in motor accident cases in which' it was clear that punitive damages had been awarded. The case was one in which Mr O’Leary applied for a new trial where a boy had been awarded £9OO, the plaintiff having sustained a fractured skull as the result of being knocked off his bicycle by a motor car. The driver of the car failed to stop after the accident and Mr O’Leary submitted that this fact influenced the jury in its assessment of the damages. The defendant in the action, Mary Josephine White, was the owner of the car, but was not the driver at the time of the accident. The plaintiff was Harry Kitchener Collins. Mr O’Leary said it was almost commonplace now that where a case went to a jury it was almost impossible to get a verdict for the defendant on the main issue, but one knew that in cases where there was very grave doubt whether the defendant should be mulcted in damages at all one found the damages assessed were moderate. There was a second class of case where liability was definitely . fixed on the evidence, and in most of these cases a liberal and generous award was made to plaintiff. Then there was a third type of case, of which Mr O’Leary submitted the present was one, where there were circumstances which the jury resented, such as those when the driver of the defendant’s car drove away from the scene of the accident and endeavoured to keep his connection with the matter a secret. In cases of that kind Mr O’Leary contended that the jury awarded punitive damages through resenting the action of the driver. Mr Justice Smith reserved his decision.