A TRYING SITUATION FOR LAWYERS.

Temuka Leader, Issue 1154, 29 September 1883, Page 3

A TRYING SITUATION FOR LAWYERS.

In the Queen’s Bench division, before Judges Williams and Matthews,a motion was made fora ntw trial of the case Bullock v. Tne South-eastern Railway Company. The plaintiff, a daughter of the proprietor of Bullock’s Royal Marionettes, sought to recover damages from the defendants for personal injuries sustained by her while travelling by one of their trains, She was travelling to Dover with her mother and some of her sisters on the business of the Marionettes . The train pulled up at a place where there was no platform, and the plaintiff, on getting down there, as she was required by the company’s servants to do, received the injuries complained of. The trial of the case before the Lord Chief Justice r«alted in a verdict for her, witli damages to the amount of a thousand guineas. The arguments turned chiefly on the question as to the nature of the injuries the plaintiff had suffered, and whether they were permanent or merely temporary, the evidence on the subject being conflicting. Counsel for the company contended, in"

support of the rule, that th" p'.mi iff had no real claim for damans ■ X '*m*i | for the suffering she had gone through I during a short period of illness since the accident happened, and the expenses she had been put to, Mr Biron, Q.C. who before his appointment as a Ji'dic" Magistrate was one of the defendant’s counsel, said, in the earlier stdgn of the arguments, that it was one of Those cases in which a railway company was to be called upon to pay excessive damages merely because a jtoo sympathetic jury had allowed thelf feelings to get the better of them, when the counsel on the other side held up to them the spectacle of a good-looking young woman who had sustained some hurt. Mr Justice Williams—She was good-looking, was she ? Mr Biron— Yes, my Lord ; and the worst of it was that she had several good-looking sistero, whom the other side brought forward to give evidence on her behalf. B«t the worst of all was that the best-looking of the lot was reserved for the last, Mr Justice Williams and Mr Justice Matthews jocularly expressed their sympathy with the learned counsel in so trying a situation. It was very shocking and very hard on railway companies, The Attorney-General also dwelt on this feature of the case, and said that after the last and best looking of the sisters had been placed in the witnessbox, and brought matters to a climax, the jury would not listen to anything else. Nothing he could say had the slightest impression on them. The Lord Chief Justice did his best to bring them to reason, but it was all in vain. The Court added that the rule must be made absolute and a new trial .granted unlesstbe parties could agree a bout a reduction of the damages from 1000 guineas to £SOO.