WATTS v SINGH WATTS v GREWAL [1989] NSWCA 224

WATTS v SINGH WATTS v GREWAL

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

SAMUELS, MAHONEY and PRIESTLEY JJA 7 September 1989, 7 September 1989

[1989] NSWCA 224 NEGLIGENCE — motor vehicle accident — no question of principle.

Samuels JA These appeals are the consequences of a motor vehicle accident which took placeon the Pacific Highway near Woolgoolga at about 4 o'clock in the morning.

Campbell J, the learned trial judge, depended for a solution of the problem before him on the following material.

First, the account of the accident given by one of the drivers, because the other driver remembered nothing of what occurred, and his passenger was killed; while the passenger of the driver, Mr Grewal, who could recollect, was able to offer very little assistance in describing what he had observed.

Next, the damage to the motor vehicles and the position in which they ended up.

Thirdly, certain marks on the roadway made by portions of one of the motor vehicles, and by one of its tyres.

Finally, an expert opinion expressed by an experienced police officer, which the learned trial judge admitted with some reluctance, and ultimately rejected.

The judgment, with which I may say at once I respectfully agree, is clear, careful and well constructed, and no purpose would he served by my recapitulating the facts, and then merely expressing my conclusion, which is that it exhibits no basis for any intervention by this Court.

I can shortly put my view in this way. There were two, let us say, possible hypotheses, each depending upon a finding as to which of the two vehicles crossed the double centre line. In order to present a solution to that problem, the fact finder could consider the initial contact damage of the vehicles which was agreed, the marks, and above all, the account given of what was said to have happened.