MOTOR ACCIDENTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 7 February 1940, Page 9

MOTOR ACCIDENTS

PERSONAL INJURY CLAIMS

COMMITTEE APPOINTED TO ENQUIRE.

(By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON. This Day

Acting on the recommendation of the-Law Revision Committee. Cabinet has set up a special committee to examine the basis of liability for personal injuries arising from the use of motor-vehicles, to investigate the practicability of adopting in such cases the principle of absolute liability, without regard to negligence, and to consider what limitations would be necessary if such a rule were adopted. This announcement was made last evening by the Minister of Justice. Mr Mason.

The Minister said that the committee, consisting of four men who had had long experience of the problems rising out of motor accidents, and a fifth member representing the general body of road users, would be constituted as follows: —■

Mr H. F. O’Leary, K.C., chairman; Mr R. Caughley, chairman of the Underwriters' Association; Mr J. H. Jerram, 1.5.0., general manager, State Fire Insurance Department; Mr W. E. Leicester, barrister and solicitor; Mr J. Read. J.P.. secretary of the Timber Workers' Union (Wellington branch). "Under the present law," said Mr Mason, "a person injured in a motor accident cannot recover damages unless he can prove that the accident was caused by the wrongdoing (generally negligent) of some other person, and no less than a third of the Supreme Court’s time is now taken up with attempts to determine liability. To do so a number of very complicated rules and principles have been evolved, and it is common knowledge, not only among lawyers, that juries today, knowing that every motor-vehicle in New Zealand is covered by a third partj r insurance policy, are prone to give judgment for a plaintiff on a run-ning-down case on very slender evidence. That is. juries themselves, in finding negligence so readily, are tending to the elimination of this factor as a test of liability. The committee will consider the financial, legal, social and other consequences that would result from importing into our law the principle of absolute liability." In order that the committee may commence its deliberations as soon as possible, all persons or bodies who wish to supply information to or give evidence before the committee are requested to communicate, not later than February 19, 1940, with Dr A. M. Finlay. secretary to the committee, office of the Minister of Justice. Parliament Buildings, Wellington.