THE HYDRO-ELECTRIC COMMISSION V. BLAKE

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA °

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Judgment delivered at___MELBOURNE .

WM, Houston, Gort. Prist., Motb, %

0: CTRIC C

Appeal dismissed with costs.

THE HYDRO-ELECTRIC COMMISSION

Ve

BLAKE

DIXO

O-ELECTRI: IMMISSTIO.

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BLAKE

The respondent to this appeal was the plaintiff in an action heard by Cox J. in which his Honour found a verdict in her favour for £8,200 and judgment was entered accordingly. The action was brought under the provisions of the Fatal Accidents Act and arose out of the death of the plaintiff's husband, one Harold Edward Blake, on 18th May 1960 while working as a transport driver in the employ of the appellant Commission. On that day Blake was driving a mobile crane belonging to the Commission along a road in mountainous country on the way to Lake Fenton. The rear part of the mobile crane consisted of a tractor on which was the driver's seat and in front of and attached to it was the crane mounted on the front arle. The vehicle was a heavy one weighing seven tons and of this weight two tons was represented by a concrete block carried at the rear of the tractor in order to provide a counter weight for the crane. A fellow employee named Kalinicki had driven on ahead of the crane in a truck with one of the Commission's engineers, and after waiting for some time at the Lake for Blake, they drove back along the road to look for him and met him driving the mobile crane up a steep part of the road. Apparently the carburettor on the tractor was causing some trouble and, as the two vehicles approached one another, both stopped and Blake asked Kalinicki for a spanner, which was given to him. He climbed out of the driver's seat to the ground on the off side of the vehicle and walked round the back of it to the near side of the engine and

was there making some adjustment to the carburettor, when the