DAMAGES AWARDED

Evening Post, Volume CVIII, Issue 134, 3 December 1929, Page 16

DAMAGES AWARDED

ELDERLY CYCLIST'S CLAIM

The Chief Justice (tho Hon. M. Myers) yesterday afternoon awarded Arthur Coinetti, of Petone, £229 damages in respect of Ills claim against Bernard Jackson Licz and his wife, Madelina .Liez, for s£4S4, following upon a collision which occurred on the new Hutt bridge between the plaintiff's bicycle- and the defendant's motor-car. Continuing the evidence for the defence, Alexander Clark, a painter, agreed with a previous witness that the plaintiff rode abreast of the car for some distance and then, swerved suddenly to the left, running into the right front mudguard.

Liez said that his w.ife had been learning to drive for some time, and he considered she was competent to hold a driver's licence. The plaintiff was riding on the wrong side of the bridge and was gradually converging on to the car. Suddenly he swerved to the left and his bicycle struck the mudguard. Mrs. Licz had just previously sounded the horn twice.

Cross-examined, witness denied that he applied the hand-brake himself because his wife lost her head, Tho plaintiff was not dragged any distance. His Honour remarked that witness, by allowing his wife to take the wheel on- a Sunday afternoon when apparently she needed a little more practice, was looking for trouble. Madelina Liez gave corroborative evidence. She denied that the plaintiff was dragged for any distance. She and her husband were so occupied in looking after the plaintiff that they did not think of getting witnesses. They both visited him at the hospital, and he made no suggestion that they were responsible. Witness denied having told Scddon,. a witness for the plaintiff, that she did not try to pull up. To his Honour, . witness .said that there was no traffic in front of Conietti going the same way, and consequently there was nothing to stop him from pedalling faster and getting over to the correct side of the bridge. Eiiby Findlay, married woman, who was a passenger in the car, said she commented just before tho accident on the fact that Conietti was taking a risk by-- riding in the middle of the bridge. He did not appear to witness to be conscious of his surroundings, and took no notice of the horn.

This concluded tho 'evidence for the defence. His Honour said that the questions involved in the ease were pure questions of fact. There were two versions of the circumstances leading up to the accident, and they were diametrically opposed and impossible to reconcile. He preferred to accept the evidence given for the plaintiff; he' thought it was the more probable and correct. His Honour remarked that the fact that neither the defendants nor the passengers in the car saw a car in front of the plaintiff wont to show that the ev^lencc they had given generally as to their observations —and he might say there was a curious sameness about their evidence—could not be accepted. The evidence of the two independent witnesses called by tho plaintiff could not be disregarded. He was bound to accept it just as he ■was satisfied a jury would without, hesitation accept it.. In awarding the plaintiff £29 special and £200 general damages, His Honour said he thought that amount would reasonably meet the case. Mr. "W. B. Leicester acted for the plaintiff, and Mr. O. C. Mazcngarb for the defendants. .