Select any passage to save a personal note with optional tags.
IN THE HIGH COURT. OF~
'REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Judgment delivered at..
0 TUESDAY, 10TH MARCH 1970¢
a
€,9987/68—A112
%
MOORE
ORDER
Appeal dismissed with costs.
JUDGMENT
(ORAL)
MOORE
Ve
BELL
BARWICK C.J.
This appeal arises out of the trial of an
action in which a motor boat operator claims indemnity
or contribution from another motor boat operator in.
respect of a verdict to which the appellant had properly
agreed in an action against him by a water skier who, at
the relevant time, had been towed by the respondent and
who suffered personal injury by reason of an act of the
appellant.
The trial judge was not prepared to find that
_ the respondent was in breach of any duty towards the
water skier causally related to the damage for which the
appellant was responsible and accordingly found a verdict
for the respondent.
Mr. Connor for the appellant has submitted to us
that the trial judge was wrong in refusing to conclude upon
the particular facts of the case that the respondent was in
breach of his duty to take care for the safety of the water
skier he had been towing, in two respects: firstly, in not
recovering the tow line after the water skier had let it go
and before it was picked up by the appellant's boat; and
secondly, in not having in his boat an observer as required
by law.
Mr. Connor has examined the relevant facts very
fully and I find no need to recount them here, He says
that upon those facts the proper inference is that the
2.
respondent failed to exercise due care for the skier's
safety and that that failure contributed to the happening
of the accident in which the water skier was personally
injured. .
The case, of course, turns on its own facts.
The trial judge has not thought that any of the various
lines of conduct on the part of the respondent which the
appellant has suggested he ought to have taken were
reasonably required of him in the circumstances. In
addition, his Honour thought that the absence of an
observer from the respondent's boat did not contribute
to the result.
Having considered all that counsel for the
appellant has said, I am unable to reach the conclusion
that the trial judge was wrong in not accepting the view
that in the circumstances of the case 'the appellant had
established negligence on the part of the respondent
causally related to the damage for which the appellant
has become responsible. Consequently the appeal, in my
opinion, should be dismissed.
MOORE v. BELL
JUDGMENT. KITTO J.
CORAL)
MOORE _v. BELL
I agree.
MOORE v. BELL
JUDGMENT' , WALSH 3.
CORAL)
MOORE ve BELL
I agree.