IMPORTANT DECISION.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXV, Issue 4687, 14 April 1924, Page 1

IMPORTANT DECISION.

DANGEROUS ROADS. LOCAL BODY NOT LIABLE. In giving a decision in favour of the Kowai County Council, which was proceeded against by Mrs. Arthur Elliott for personal injuries and damages to a car sustained on a road in bad condition, and where a deviation bad been made, his Honor Mr. Justice Reid, in the Supreme Court at Christchurch, stated : “ The law is perfectly clear in this matter. By a long line of cases running back for two or three centuries it has been decided that local bodies are not guiltv of non feasance (failure to perform). There was no liability on a local-body to keep a highway in repair, or to fence a dangerous piece of road, or to put up any notice in respect of it, or to take any precaution for the safety of traffiic. No doubt this was done in order not to impose an intolerable burden on local bodies in keeping roads in repair. The defendant body had voluntarily put a barrier some distance away from the washout, but there was no duty cast upon it to do so, and it was entitled to take the barrier away at any time it desired to do so. In the circumstances there was no necessity to reserve his decision, and judgment would accordingly be given for the defendant with costs according to scale. While he felt sympathy for people who met with such a mishap as plaintiff had, still it had to be borne in mind that the highways were used subject to any such dangers as might exist.” The above is a very clear and definite statement in regard to the actual state of the roads, but nevertheless a local body or a private person would doubtless be liable for any damages caused by leaving an obstruction, such as a dray, a load of shingle, or timber, etc , on the middle of the road, without giving adequate warning of the existence of such obstruction