£30,000 Damages Claim Entering Third Day

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31004, 9 March 1966, Page 3

£30,000 Damages Claim Entering Third Day

GVetr Zealand Press Association) AUGKLAiND, March 8. The hearing of a claim for more than £30,000 damages will enter its third day in the Supreme Court at Auckland tomorrow.

The plaintiff is Hubert Watts, aged 54, a railway worker, of Otatuhu, represented by Mr J. D. Dalgety and Mr S. G. Lockhart.

Watts is claiming £30.000 M i general damages and £4500 to 1 £5OOO special damages after an accident in the Auckland railway yards. Railway waggons containing cases of fruit were often badly stacked, said a truck 1 driver. Lex Murray Macdonrald. BADLY STACKED Macdonald said the cases! I in the middle of the waggon concerned had not been well I ! stacked, but he had not ex-1 I pected a case to fall out. He admitted that this indi- , cated that although cases had! I fallen out in the past it had I | not been very often. [ Re-examined, he said casesi ! had been badly stacked on | ! numerous occasions. At the time of the accident ■ he had made a statement to a railways inquiry that cases ; had fallen out on numerous occasions when waggon doors I were opened. Oliver Ross Nicholson, an orthopaedic surgeon, said hospital records showed that Watts was suffering from

) complete paralysis of both > arms and partial paralysis of • both legs when admitted to I hospital on March 25. 1963. He met plaintiff on January ■ 18, 1964, and obtained the i history of the accident. MADE PROGRESS Plaintiff had made good progress and was now a partial quadriplegic—a person : | who had lost part or all of; i the function of all four limbs. II Cross-examined, he said[ ■lthat in some respects plain- ' tiff was a little better off than ’other quadriplegics, in that he! '[had partial control over his’ I limbs. But in control over his! bodily functions he was worse i off than most. It was not impossible for Watts to work, but he could not do clerical work, could not work near machines, could not take public transport to work, would have to work in a level place, and could not be a constant attender at work. Kathleen Ann Watts, wife of the plaintiff, said that during the first month or six

weeks her husband was in hospital he was very distressed but he became more cheerful as some movement returned to his limbs. During the last 12 months her husband had not improved. He had been in perfect health before the accident.