A MOTOR COLLISION.

Taranaki Daily News, 14 May 1921, Page 7

A MOTOR COLLISION.

CLAIM FOR DAMAGES.

.JURY AWARD £l7B.

The claim of Robert Leach, of Hawera, against Arthur Sagar, of Hawera, for £225 damage's sustained in a collision between cars driven by plaintiff and defendant, was concluded in the Supreme Court at New Plymouth yesterday, when the jury returned a verdict in favor of Leach. Counsel’s addresses occupied the greater part of the morning and His Honor Mr. Justice Reed then summed up. His Honor said that those who had experienced in cases of accidents such as the one under review usually found two features perfectly clear. One was that the most disinterested and independent witnesses would take quite a different view of the same accident, and the other was that witnesses involuntarily sided with the party who called them. These aspects had to be taken into consideration in reviewing the evidence. As to the actual statements in this case, His Honor said, they had the allegation of plaintiff that he was travelling in the middle of the road, and that defendant (Sagar) came round the corner on the wrong side. On the other hand Sagar said Leach was on the wrong side. Probably (His Honor said) the jury might think that the truth lay somewhere between these two views. It was difficult to understand in the case of a macadamised surface on which the parties were travelling that one would select the side of the road, and that defendant was clinging to the corner in coming round. They might incline to the belief that both were somewhere about the middle of the road. With regard to the rate at which they were travelling, he pointed out that evidence on matters of speed was almost invariably unreliable. Ln an action for negligence the onus was upon the plaintiff to satisfy the jury that there was such negligence. When it was found that the collision took place on one person’s wrong side of the road that was prima facie evidence that the person on the wrong side was the one who caused the collision. In this case defendant was, lat the point of the collision, on his 1 wrong side; that was prima facie evidence of negligence upon his part, and he would have to satisfy the jury he was in that position through no fault of his own; he accounted for this by stating that plainitff was not on the correct side. In regard to Sagar’s assertion that his ear was stopped, His Honor’s opinion was that the probability was that both cars wqre moving at the time of the collision. 1 The question was whether a motorist while 60 feet away, on seeing an oncoming car on the wrong side of the road, was justified in assuming, that it would come straight at him or whether he was to assume that the approaching vehicle would turn over to the correct side before reaching him, and therefore he would be able to keep to his course. In this case if defendant had kept straight on, and plaintiff’s car had gone to the left, there would not have been an accident, because there was ample time for the plaintiff to turn off. The jury retired at 12.36 p.m. and returned at* 2.15 p.m. with a verdict for plaintiff, the amount of damages being fixed at £l7B 17s.