SUPREME COURT.

Taranaki Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 16617, 15 December 1919, Page 3

SUPREME COURT.

INJURED HORSEMAN CLAIMS £IOOO. TO-DAY'S EVIDENCE. - (Continued from page 4.) When the Court resumed: this morning Walsh, tho driver of defendant’s car, was re-called by Mr. Bennett, and deposed that he knew there was a depression at the approach to the bridge, ’ and this would cause him to slow down and take a good look to see if there was anything approaching on the bridge. He could not say whether on tliis occasion he looked: out more than usually carefully. In answer to Mr> Johnstone, witness admitted that in the statement which he made to a constable two days after the accident there was no mention of this. : His Honour: “Do 1 you still say the horesman was not on the bridge?” Witness: “I don’t remember seeing him.” ' Evelyn Meads, waitress employed at the Royal Hotel, deposed that, she was in the car driven by Walsh, and was sitting in the front seat. Sue did not remember seing any horseman at tho AVaiwakaiho Bridge. As near as she could tell the car entered and passed) ■over the bridge in the centre of tho roadway. Cross-examined, witness said that at near as she remembered all the bridges were crossed in the centre that night. She had no particular reason to remember this, except that they always crossed bridges in the centre. William Patrick Ivclleher,- Customhouse officer, formerly stationed at New Plymouth, deposed that he went to Waitara at the invitation of Father Kelly. He sat in the back seat of the car at the right-hand side, and knew nothing about the car having run into anybody on the Waiwakaiho Bridge. He thought the speed of the car-on enterxng tlie bridge would have been about fifteen miles an hour. He remembered! that the bridge was entered at the left side, and thought the remainder of it was crossed at the centre. He was sure that when half-wav across the bridge the car was not right over on tho righthand side. The average speed of the car for the trip Would be about 20 miles. After, the car had left the asphalt portion of the road witness drew attention to a rattling, and the driver said ho thought it was the hood. George Gibson, garage proprietor, gave evidence regarding the bad state of the road at tho entrance to the Waiwakaiho Bridge at the time of the accident. If a car had gone 0n..t0 the bridge at a terrific pace a pig-net would have been needed to keep the passengers in the hack seat. Witness did not think plaintiff could have seen from the Waitara side of the bridge a car approaching (hrec or four hundred yards on the New Plymouth side. His Honour said he had visited the locality and disagreed with the view expressed by the witness. Reginald Day, chief inspector for the borough of . New -Plymouth,’ deposed that on March 6 (Show Hay) he was on duty at the Waiwakaiho Bridge and observed that there was a depression at the New Plymouth end which caused the passengers in a good many cars which passed to be thrown off their seats. Constable G. A. Hadler gave evidence concerning an examination he made of the locality on the day after the accident. The hearing of evidence concluded at II o’clock. . In the course of his address to the jury, Mr. Bennett said there was no onus on defendant to bring before the jury suppositious explanations of how the accident occurred, but to help them in arriving at -a conclusion he would suggest that plaintiff had got hold of the wrong car, or else that, whether it was Wooldridge’s car or not, the accident was not caused by the car being on its wrong side, but that it was an inevitable accident caused by the horse plunging, turning its head away! from the car. and thus bringing its ado towards the car. The judge pointed out that there was no evidence that the horse plunged before the accident. Mr. Johnstone also addressed the jury. The judge stunmed-up the evidence, and in doing so pointed out the strength of the circumstantial evidence leading to the assumption that, defendant’s car caused the accident and that, if this was the car, the driver could not have ■ been other than negligent if he failed to see the horseman, as he swore, in view of the circumstances shown in the evidence. The jury retired at 12.30.