PETITION OF RIGHT.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXV, Issue 18500, 22 February 1930, Page 20 (Supplement)

PETITION OF RIGHT.

CLAIM Fort DAMAGES FAILS. NEGLIGENCE NOT PROVED. By Telegraph—Press Association. NAPIER, February 21. A petition of right for damages for the death of his wife and the loss of an arm by his son in a railway accident at Wairoa on February 27 last year, was made at the Supreme Court at Napier to-day, by Ray David Munro, the total amount claimed being £4OOO. The Crown was respondent in the case. Mr P. J. O’Regan, Wellington, appeared for tne suppliant, and Mr H. B. Lusk for the Crown. The claim contended that the accident had been due to negligence on the part of an engine-driver and guard, in not seeing that the necessary precaution of stationing a man on the rearmost carriage of the train, which was going backwards had been carried out. It was shown that the path between the rails was the only means of access to workers’ cottages skirting the track, and that for this reason more precautions should have been taken. It was alternatively alleged that the Department should have provided suitable and proper fences at the side of the track. Evidence was given as to the accident, it being shown that the child had been out on the track, and had consequently had his arm taken off, while his mother, in trying to save him, had been fatally injured. Cross-examination revealed the fact that the child had run out only about ten feet in front of the moving train. At the conclusion of the evidence for suppliant, his Honour (Mr Justice Blair) stated that the case had not been at all amply shown. The onus was on the parents to prevent children from straying on to the railway track. Even if a guard had been stationed on the rear truck, the accident could not have been avoided in a space of ten feet. Both cases were non-suited, with costs, the jury being accordingly dismissed without being called on to consider the case.