HENRY V. WILLIAMS

eus/55

W. M. Hooustox, Govt. Print., Melb.

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ORIGINAL -

IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

Judgment delivered at... SYDNEY... on... FRIDAY, 21st APRIL.1961...-...

HENRY

WILLIAMS

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Appeal dismissed with costs.

JUDGMENT,

HENRY

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JUDGMENT OF THE COURT DELIVERED BY DIXON C..

CORAM:

DIXON, C.J: This is an appeal from an order of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales refusing an application for a new trial made on behalf of the plaintiff in an action for personal injuries sustained as a result, as is alleged, of the negligence of the defendant.

The plaintiff was a pedestrian, a somewhat elderly lady, who was injured as she was crossing a road at about a quarter to seven in the evening of the 10th May 1957. She was crossing not quite directly across a well used country road in a town, from the house where she had been to her own house. She crossed slightly diagonally.

The jury found a verdict against her on a summing-up, putting negligence and contributory.negligence fully. The application for a new trial was based on the ground that in the circumstances of the case the judge should in addition have directed the jury that the defendant might be liable if, notwithstanding the plaintiff's negligence, he might by a proper exercise of care and skill still have avoided the consequences so as to save the plaintiff from injury but neglected to do so er was disabled from doing so by his owm negligence.

The case is an extremely simple one in its facts. The defendant was riding a moter cycle, and he was on the furthest side of the road from that from which the plaintiff proceeded to cross. It was dark, or at all events dusk. She looked to her right, she saw motor cars coming - two or three - and waited. On her left she saw the bright lights of a motor cycle which in fact was not the motor cycle