VICARIOUS LIABILITY CLAIMED

Evening Star, Issue 22465, 9 October 1936, Page 12

VICARIOUS LIABILITY CLAIMED

APPEAL COURT HEARING DUNEDIN CASE [Per United Press Association.] WELLINGTON, October 9. The Appeal Court is hearing the claim of Isabel Daisy Ingram, of Dunedin, against Henry Walden Fitzgerald, medical practitioner, for injuries suffered by her through alleged negligent painting of part of her body with iodine containing carbolic acid in solution. This case has been removed into the Court of Appeal for argument by order of Mr Justice Kennedy. Plaintiff claimed that she suffered burns causing great pain and permanent injury, and a second operation which she was to undergo had to be postponed for a month, with the consequence that her recovery therefrom was considerably retarded.

Defendant denied negligence on the part of the nurse, and put forward a further defence that the nurse was not his servant, and he was not responsible for any negligence on her part, if negligence occurred. It was explicitly admitted that there was no personal negligence on the part of defendant, but counsel for plaintiff submitted that defendant was vicariously liable for the negligence of the nurse on the basis that, for the purpose of this operation, she was his servant.