CAUSING A MAN’S DEATH

Taranaki Daily News, 18 October 1930, Page 9

CAUSING A MAN’S DEATH

MEANING OF NEGLIGENCE

DISTINCTION MADE BY LAW.

FULL COURT HEARS ARGUMENT.

By Telegraph.—Press Association. Wellington, Last Night. The Court of Appeal was engaged again to-day in hearing argument on questions of law reserved in the case of Alfred Edward .Storey, of Wellington, sales manager, heard at the last criminal sessions of the Supreme Court. Storey was charged that on April 13, 1930, on the Ngahauranga Gorge Road, by negligent driving of a motor-car he did kill Violet Amelia Cook and Norman Webb Cook, thereby committing manslaughter, or alternatively by so driving did cause the deaths of Mr. and Mrs. Cook.

Continuing his argument for the appellant, Mr. Cornish submitted that, although there were many decisions to the effect that contributory negligence was no defence to a charge of manslaughter in New Zealand, yet that doctrine was not so firmly entrenched in the Dominion’s jurisprudence that it could not be displaced. If there were operative negligence on the part of the person indictee! and operative negligence on the part of the person killed, then one negligence erased the other. It was not sufficient for the Crown to prove that there was a collision. It had also to be established that it was that collision which determined Cook’s course after the impact. Whether the collision caused the death or whether death was an indirect consequence of the collision was the material point and should have been left to the jury. Mr' Cornish contended that unless the thing subsequent was clearly determined by the thing precedent it could not be regarded as a consequence. Consequently evidence as to matters subsequent to the impact shoiild have been permitted to have been introduced. Counsel submitted that the practice of putting issues to the jury was bad in law. The jury was always entitled to answer "guilty” or “not guilty,” and the judge had no power to ask the jury to answer issues. The question as to whether the negligence ■of the ’ accused substantially caused the accident was a question for the jury, and therefore it was wrong for the judge to have excluded evidence relative to that point. In order that Storey should have been convicted under the alternative charge, that laid under the Motor Vehicles Act, it was necessary for the Crown to prove criminal mind on the part; of the accused and that the negligence of. the accused was the real cause of the accident. Mrl Cornish contended that- the;' actual verdict of the jury was one of not?; guilty inasmuch as the statement-in it that the accident was due to an error of judgment pegatived negligence on the part of Storey. Negligence and error of judgment were mutually exclusive terms. The Solicitor-General (Mt. A. Fair, K.C.) said he wished to draw the court’s attention to the fact that the whble of the circtimstances under consideration occured in a very short period of fiitie. Something under two seconds elapsed between the time Storey first saw Cook’s car rand the impact. From the time the collision occurred until the moment the car went over the bank was only a further two seconds, consequently all the events happened in less than' four seconds. . This fact was most important wiien considering the possibility of contributory negligence having affected the result., The various incidents comprising the accident could not be.split up, but must be regarded as a Whole. ' j•. In New Zealand, if ..a person by his negligence contributed to an accident causing death he was guilty of manslaughter, and it was not necessary that his was the preponderance of negligence. _ This distinction between civil and criminal proceedings based on negligence was due to the fact that the latter were taken for the protection of the public and as a deterrent to would-be offenders. The court adjotirnCd till Monday.