CARELESS WORKMAN

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 724, 25 July 1929, Page 16

CARELESS WORKMAN

CLAIM FOR COMPENSATION DISMISSED On the ground that there had been contributory negligence by the employee, Mr. Justice Kennedy, in a reserved judgment delivered in the Supreme Court today, dismissed a claim for £930 by Joseph Francis Hayes for injuries he received through a bucket falling on his head while hauling cement on the Point Chevalier theatre construction. The action was taken against the contractor, Walter Scott, by whom Hayes was employed. His Honour held that the allegation that a different hook had been substituted after the accident was unfounded, and that the hook used at the time of the mishap, and thereafter, was in the iorm of a ramsliorn, which he considered was safe. In his opinion the accident was caused through the bucket catching on part of the scaffolding m ascending and being jerked by plain - i tin, causing the bucket to become unhooked. He considered that Hayes would not have been injured had he exercised reasonable care and hauled, as he might well have done, from a safe position. It was carders to haul in a position below the bucket or to jerk it -when it struck the scaffolding in ascending. His Honour added that contributory negligence having been proved defendant was not liable for damages independently of the Workers’ Compensation Act. The action was dismissed, plaintiff, however, being ordered to pay defendant’s costs.