FLAX DAMAGED BY FIRE

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22518, 28 September 1938, Page 7

FLAX DAMAGED BY FIRE

APPLICATION FOR NEW TRIAL GRANTED

JURY’S AWARD HELD TO BE EXCESSIVE

[THE PRESS Special 'Service.! WELLINGTON, September 27

A sum of £2750 damages, awarded by a jury of 12 against Sir Kenneth Douglas to Percy Higginbottom and others for a fire which spread from Sir Kenneth Douglas’s property ana burned an estimated area of 300 acres of growing flax at Mangaroa, was held to-day by Mr Justice Blair in a reserved judgment to be excessive. A new trial was granted. The claim in the Supreme Court was for £SOOO. After the verdict of the jury, a new trial was applied for on the grounds that the damages were excessive, and that the verdict was against the weight of evidence Shortly after. the expiry 5 .0 i. thcv time for filing an actien for a new trial, the defendant applied for, and was r ranted, leave to file a further motion lor a new trial, based upon the discovery of new and material evidence. During the argument, his Honour intimated to counsel for the plaintiff that, in his view, there was evidence justifying the jury in finding that the fire which spread to and damaged the plaintiffs’ flax was lit by the defendant. The second ground of the motion was accordingly treated as applicable only to the question of damages. His Honour, in his judgment to-day, said he was clearly of the opinion that there should be a new trial on the grounds that the damages were excessive. Had he been trying the case, he would have come to the conclusion that the fire which destroyed the plaintiffs’ flax originally came from a fire lit by the defendant. At most, the new evidence was merely -corroborative' of the version # of the genesis of the fire as contended by the defence.