DAMAGES AWARDED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 4, Issue 154, 12 September 1941, Page 5

DAMAGES AWARDED

' FARMER SUES COMPANY

MILK VAT STAND COLLAPSES

Negligent erection of a milk vat stand was held to be proved toy Mr E. L. Walton, S.M, at the local Court on Tuesday and dam- ; ages against the Gane Miilking Machine Company (Mr G. Otley) were awarded Albert John Rhodes, farmer, of Te Teko (Mr C. A. Suckling). The case revolved round the collapse of a milk vat stand which, in falling, damaged' a Separator. The claim was for £29 5s 6d less £10 10s! since recovered by sale of the damaged machine, and the plaintiff was awarded £12 12s with costs awarded against the defendants to the extent of £8 10s 6d. plaintiff related that he had purchased a milking machine from the company, and as the season was .at its flush, a vat stand had been . erected with intention to later build the required concrete wall and reerect the stand, the company having agreed to do this work. This had been done but some months Jater the stand containing a full SO gallon vat collapsed on to a separator which he valued at £25.

Negligence Alleged

The plaintiff .claimed that the Stand had been negligently erected by the company and added that he, at the time, had been unable to contact the firm's fitter and had been forced to call in an opposition firm to prepare him for the following day's milking. It was contended that it Avas found the stand had been erected in a manner suitable for a container of considerablj' lesser size, and had been insufficiently strong to cope with the weight of milk involved.

The usual fitting had been bolted to the wall in the customary way, but the arms extending from this had been fixed with only seven nails driven askew. The supports were diagonally fitted from the extremities of the supporting arms to base of the wall. Built in this fashion, was claimed, the loaded vat's weight would tend to thrust outward with the result that the nailing was . insecure. I. Warbrick, a milker, was called ■: to give evidence that the stand had been used only in the usual way, and had not received any undue Strain to cause its collapse. More Bolts Needed A carpenter, Henry F. Cole, a builder, C. Ballantyne, expressed their opinions that the nailing was insufficient support and that, to bear the weight, the arms should have been bolted to the 6in x 4in which, in turn, was bolted to the wall. The stand had been correctly built with that exception. The claim of the defendant company was that the stand had been ■erected in the usual and general .y accepted manner, that the stand was level with weight of milk evenly distributed so that there was no thrust outwards to cause nails to give. These nails were driven to prevent side play.

Fitter's Solution

James A. Fraser, fitter ' for the •company, gave evidence to that effect. He added that he was at a loss to know a reason why the stand collapsed other than the vat was wrongly adjusted, in that he had erected hundreds in a similar fashlon, He had never seen any stand with bolts used where the plaintiff claimed thsy should have been. The wrenching of the vat to alter its n#sition while it contained weight 4>£ inilk was his solution to the collapse. The 4 inch and 3 inch naih; were the size invariably usee}. Similar statements were made by Roy E. Orr, who stated that for the past 20 years he had been employed us a fitter. He definitely could not recall having seen bolts used other than to hold the cross member to the wall. T agree with the plaintiff that the method of fixing the stand to the back support was no done in a workmanlike way," commented His Worship adding that therefore the plaintiff succeeded in his case, He then awarded the damages as previously mentioned.