CURIOUS CLAIMS FOR DAMAGES.

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 5, Issue 215, 6 October 1916, Page 4 (Supplement)

CURIOUS CLAIMS FOR DAMAGES.

QUEER REASON'S FOR GOING TO COCRT.

There would appear to be practically no end or limit to the knotty problems which the courts of law are from time to time asked to decide, some of the claims for damages, for instance, be/ng based on such queer and unusual grounds as must tax to the : r utmost the great forensic powers of even the most astute lawyers. In this respect railway comnan : es probably hold the record for the number and variety of curious lawsuits in which they are frequently involved; and while Englishmen arc by no means lack : ng in experience of such, the palm for a claim which is surely unique must be given to,the Frenchman who recently sued for a lost dinner. One can hardly imagine a Brit'sher having the temerity to sue a railway company for the value of a lost meal. He would sooner go hungry and grum. bl'3. Not so our gallant ally, however He took a tra.n to be present at ,t family dinner to which he was invited* but the train straggled in late, and so prevented tho hungry man from enjoying the nu-al, to which he had no doubt looked forward with sweet anticipation. Did he swear at the driver, the sta tion-master, the porters, and consign the whole railway system, inducing directors to a place even warmer than the cab of the locomotive? Perhaps Certainly, he claimed damages from the company for the loss of his dinner , and so thoroughly in accord with the justice of his claim were the gentlemen who const tute the Paris Tribunal of Commerce that they awarded him the substantial sum of 325. as compensate Cli.

£3500 SPENT IX QUARREL OVER

EIGHT EE X P E N C E

When all is .said and done, of course, it said a good deal for the " nerve" ol the Britisher who once sued a railway company for e ; ghtecnpence, this sum being the cost of rapa nng the lock of his portmanteau which had been hroli. en in transit. The Britisher in question was the late Mr. Henry Watson, the weli-known racehorse owner, who probably found that he had bitten off a little mo.rv> than lie could chew before he finally shook the dust of the law courts off lvs feet. Mr. Watson naturally knew" the suit would cost h m much more than the lock was worth, but jn for a penny in for a pound, and he certainly had to pay a few of the latter before he was clone with it. Twice the decision was given in his favour, but on the second appeal the ra/hvay company got the judgment reversed, and :t was decided that Watson must pay for the repairs himself. So, besides the cighteenpence, Watson had to draw £ little cheque for £3ooo, to settle all expenses connected with the suit. The railway company, too, although it won the case, had a smaJ! total of £l2O to square in extra expenses. Another queer claim aga'nst a railway company had its genesis in .1 cough. A barrister was the claimant in this case, and he sued the company for £oo for discomfort suffered by smoking being allowed in a waitingroom at a station and in non-smoking carriages. The smoking aggravated Dho barrister's cough, and he was a wared £lO. .

A DEAR COW. Th? United States Courts succeeded, some time ago, in finally winding up a protracted cause celebre. all about a foolhardy cow. It was known far and wide as the famous " IX? Kail) County Cow Case." The miserable animal got upon the track of the luvke Shore Railway, with the inevitable result: —En • g : ne versus cow ends in farmer minus cow.

But the owner did not lrke this, and lie sued for the value of the beast. The company retaliated by claiming damage for mischief to its rolling stock. The original Court that tried the cross-suit returned a verdict for the railway company, and awarded it £1 for injury to the engine. It was a decision witli its humorous side. But the farmer d d not submit. He wanted' to clear his cow's good fame, and he prosecuted a saves of appeals which landed him at last in the Supreme Court. There once more lie was worsted, and by the time the bill of costs following the still subsist:ng verdict of £1 damages was swollen to some hundreds of pounds. It was a dear cow.

SUITS FOR PEXXY BUS FARES. That a penny 'bus ticket should cost its owner £9120 Wore ho was done with it sounds a let incredible, doesn'tit? It does, but it happened, nevertheless. All London was more or less interested' in the ca.se during the six months that it occupied the courts high and low, provid ng work for the same period to over thirty people. The parties invorved in it were the well-known litigant, Mr. George Grogan, of Highbury, and a London 'bus company. Mr. Grogan, having pa'ti for his ticket, immediately left the 'bus, and : n the belief that lie had r right to mount the next 'bus going tin same way, accordingly did so, meaning to complete the journey with the same ticket. The conductor didn't agree with him, however, and as the traveller refused to pay again, in the interest, as he thought, of puhlis rights, the 'bus company took proceedings against him. The decision was against him, and lie was ordered to pay the penny and costs amounting to £3o. He appealed, and a!so repeated the performance on another 'bus. Tins tune lie paid up when rcqu'red, but sued the company to recover his penny, thus making two suits of it. When the appeal over the first ca.se came on, he lost again, but again appca'wl. Being a wealthy man, and fond of cases that touch the rights of the public, he went at it hammer and longs, employing the best lawyers in the land, and fighting briskly. However. it all went against him, and his bill for all the appeals and cost* amounted to £'9120.

Another odil case, of sj>ecial interest to the general public also, arose out of a human skeleton which a once famous scientist named Gardner lent to a brother professor. The skeleton was returned through a carrying company, but one finger was iuss : ng. Gardner put in his plea for two-and-six, the value of the l:>st linger. The carting company used a published notice which absolved them from responsibility on the goods they carried, so the borrower of the skeleton became the defendant.

The two gentlemen were great friends, and one nrght not unnaturally have thought that they m'ght now have allowed the mailer to drop, but no: nothing of the kind. Both wealthy men, they didn't care a rap for the half-crown they were fighting for, and for a solid eighteen months on and ofF they made a tremendous fight of it For more reasons than one probably, the case became known as "the went skeleton puzzle " r 'tally, .after a ver.

itable Armageddon of law, Gardner re- > covered the amount necessary to procure a new finger for his skeleton, lor v.'li cli lie had to pay, in law expenses, £2>o. The defendant found h's appeals more costly still, iind his little bill came to over £2700. The litigants always remained the best of friends. AN " AFFAIR OF THE HEART.'' With the aid of three doctors, a gentleman who was in a public conveyance when it was upset was able to prove that his heart had been shifted an inch and a half lower in his bodv as a result of the accident. The jury applied their hands to his ribs, and dd, in fact, feel the heart beafng in the wrong place. It was stated by the specialists that the sufferer might live, but the new position of the heart made it more difficult for it to do its work, and so the.r client would la ways l>e l'able to heart failure. He received damages to the value of £2OO Another "affair of the heart" resulted in a most unusual lawsuit. As we all know, broken engagements fro quently enough result in actions for breach of promise, but ! t is seldom the gentleman sues the lady when she refuses to carry out the contract, though she it really :s who does the promising For one man to sue another because h.s fiancee refuses to marry him would appear to be quite an illogical step for the disappointed man to take. Take, for example, the case of Clarence Manuel, who handed in at a Louisville. Kentucky, post office a telegram which was addressed to his sweet heart, Miss Bryant, inviting her to meet him at Louisville. The telegraphist altered Lou'sville to Nashville, with the result that Miss Bryant journeyed to the last named town to keep the appointment. The natural result was that the lovers did not meet, and for Manuel the consequence was disastrous Miss Bryant refused to wed him. So the man sued the telegraphist, placing a cash value of £4OO upon his lost love. The Court ruled, however, that he had sued the wrong party, and the disappointed lover lost hrs case.

DAMAGES FOR FLATTERY

Extraordinary cases are everyday affairs in America. Here is one. A New York lady, Mrs. Harcott, brought an action against the publisher of the "New York Herald," because he had described her a year before in his paper as "a rich and benevolent lady." Now we should have thought t4iat any Lady of wealth and philanthropic leanings would have been quite pleased to see herself referred to in such a manner in public print. Not so Mrs. Harcott.

In consequence of h s having done so, Mrs. Harcott averred that she had subsequently received 6000 letters, had had 14,000 persons calling at her house, and the requests for money made upon her amounted in total to thirty million dollars. This is an altogether new species of slander, and we are unfortunately unab/e to state how the case ended. It occurs to us, however, that a good way to have squared the matter would have l*een for the newspaper man to have advised the public through the same medium that Mrs. H. is a mserable stingy woman! This might, however,, have led to another action. —"Weekly Telegraph."