LABOURERS’ UNION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 766, 12 September 1929, Page 6

LABOURERS’ UNION

MR. R. SEMPLE RESIGNS SECRETARYSHIP SUFFERING ILL HEALTH Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. Mr. R. Semple, M.P., has resigned the secretaryship of the General Labourers' Union, and Mr. P. Butler has been elected to the position. Mr. Semple says that when elected to Parliament he resigned, but was unanimously requested to continue, and he consented on condition that he drew no set salary. He had worked nine months without pay, but was now obliged to reconsider his position, owing to ill-health. The union has adopted a resolution regretting his resignation, thanking him for his services and expressing its continued confidence in him. It has also presented to him a cheque for nine months’ service.

FALL INTO EXCAVATION PAINTER AWARDED DAMAGES COUNCIL TO PAY £546 Press Association WELLINGTON, Today. Reserved judgment was given by the Chief Justice, the Hon. M. Myers, in the Supreme Court in a case in which Henry Robert Flood, a painter, of Lower Hutt, sued the Lower Hutt Borough Council for £621 13s as damages for injuries received by plaintiff through falling into a hole at the junction of Stellin Street, Lower Hutt, and the Main Hutt Road, on the night of September 11. In the course of his judgment, his Honour said the dedication of the streets, including Stellin Street, had been accepted by the defendant council from a company which subdivided the estate, and the houses on the estate had been actually occupied, which involved the right to use the streets. The council had actually certified that the requirements of the Public Works Act had been complied with and that the streets had been dedicated to the public. After reviewing all the evidence his Honour said he found it impossible to reject the positive and circumstantial evidence given on behalf of plaintiff, or to hold that it had been satisfactorily answered. He could come to no other conclusion than that the excavation that caused the injury was made by the officers or servants of tbe council, and as he also found that the excavation so made extended into the Hutt Road, and that plaintiff fell into it from the Hutt Road side of the fence it followed, in his Honour’s opinion, that there had ben misfeasance on the part of the council, for which it was liable in damages.

He could see no foundation for the defence of contributory negligence, unless plaintiff knew the hole extended into the Hutt Road. He was satisfied he had no such knowledge. Judgment was given for the plaintiff for £546 13s damages. At the hearing Mr. P. J. O’Regan acted for plaintiff and Mr. E. P. Bunny for th. Borough Council.