SCHOOLGIRL INJURED

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16465, 29 June 1921, Page 4

SCHOOLGIRL INJURED

DAMAGES AGAINST EDUCATION BOARD. (Ter Press Association. 1 WELLINGTON, June 28. An unusual claim for damages was made against the Education Board and Technical School Board by Dennis Delaney, a gasfitter, and Winifred, aged seventeon, bis daughter. It was alleged that the girl sustained serious injuries through one of tho classroom forms collapsing in February, 1919, a.nd that the girl still was suffering from tho injuries. The sum of £loo2 was claimed. The defence denied liability or negligence. The jury held that the accident was caused by negligence of the defendants and awarded £2OO damages each to father and daughter The subject of a father’s rights within the law was reviewed by Sir John Salmond. His Honor said that the question of the father’s expenditure was too indefinite to be submitted to tho jury. If damages were awarded, no estimate should bo taken into account of damages to the father. The girl was the only one to be considered. “ThO father has no right to sue for damages for injury to his daughter.” said his Honor. “ any more than a st*?anger has. but in an indirect way parents have been enabled to bring actions of this sort. He estimated his claim for damages on the value of the domestic service he had lost through the girl’s injuries. The father had assumed, as masters of servants had done for centuries, that he was, as well as being the father of the child, also its master. Fathers for centuries past have regarded their children in the light of servants.”