Periodic Payments Of Damages

Press, Volume CV, Issue 31057, 12 May 1966, Page 1

Periodic Payments Of Damages

Xeu> Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND. May 11

The recent award of nearly £26,500 damages to a man injured in an accident might well illustrate the need to consider whether such awards should perhaps be made in part by a system of periodic payments, Mr Justice M oodhouse said in a reserved decision.

He dismissed a motion for a rehearing after a jury awarded a total of £26.497 2s to a railway worker injured in March, 1963. when a case of fruit fell out of a railway truck and struck him on the neck.

“An award of lump sum damages when it reaches these proportions may well illustrate the need to consider whether injured plaintiffs should not be compensated at least in part by a system of periodic payments,” said his Honour. “But consideration of this sort cannot become a reason for making some arbitrary, and possibly idiosyncratic, decision against a plaintiff who has established on present principles that he has suffered a loss demanding a large capital sum in compensation I

“1 have reached the conclusion. therefore, that I

The motion for retrial was made by Mr Vautier on behalf of the board.

should not, and cannot, interfere with this award on the basis that it is so excessive that there should be a new trial.

i “In my opinion, the jury in this case approached its duty with care and a due sense of responsibility as is evidenced by the fact that, contrary to the suggestion made by me in my summingup, there is a verdict of contributory negligence against the plaintiff.” Hubert Watts, aged 54 (Mr J. D Dalgety) had sued the Apple and Pear Board (Mr M. H. Vautier) and the Attor-ney-General in respect of the Railw’ays Department (Mr G D Speight) for a total of E 35.000 damages. Evidence was that, as a result of the accident. Watts had become a partial quadriplegic.