DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 904, 22 February 1930, Page 6

DAMAGES CLAIM FAILS

PETITION AGAINST CROWN RAILWAY TRAGEDY SEQUEL Press Association NAPIER, Friday. A petition of right for damages against the Crown for the death of his wife and the loss of an. arm by his son in a railway accident at Wairoa, on February 27 last year, was made in the Supreme Court at Napier today by Ray David Munro, the total amount claimed beini,' £4,000. Mr. P. J. O’Regan, of Wellington, appeared for the suppliant, and Mr. H. B. Lusk for the Crown. The claim contended that the accident was due to negligence on the part of the enginedriver and guard in not seeing that the necessary precaution of stationing a man on the rearmost carriage of the train, which was going backward, was carried out. It was shown that a path between the rails was the only means of access to workers' cottages skirting the track, and that for this reason more precautions should have been taken. It was alternately alleged that the department should have provided suitable and proper fences at the side of the track.

Evidence was given regarding the accident, it being shown that a child ran out on to the track and had consequently had his arm taken off. While his mother was trying to save him she was fatally injured. Cross-examination revealed the fact that the child had run out only about 10 feet in front of the moving train. At the conclusion of the evidence for the suppliant Mr. Justice Blair stated that a case had not been at all amply shown. The onus was on parents to prevent children from straying on to the railway track. Even if the guard had been stationed on the rear truck the accident could not have been avoided in the space of 10 feet. Both cases were nonsuited with costs, the jury being accordingly dismissed without being called on to consider the case.