Accident Helper Given Damages
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A TELEVISION engineer, William
Innard Beveridge, 17 Glebe Street, Dundee, who sued British Road Services for £2,000, has been awarded £300 damages in Dundee Sheriff Court. His right hand was injured when he tried to right a trailer which •had parted from a B.R.S. lorry and overturned. .
The Sheriff found that the salvage of the trailer created a foreseeable danger, and that the B.R.S. driver was negligent in not warning Beveridge to stand clear. The fact that Beveridge, one of several volunteers, tendered his assistance without specifically being invited by the driver to help, did not prejudice his position or alter the driver's duty towards him.
The Sheriff said that he had been invited, in the event of liability being established, to hold that there had been a substantial degree of contributory negligence, and that the danger had been as obvious to Beveridge as it had been to the driver.
In the absence of a warning from the driver, the Sheriff thought that Beveridge was excused from appreciating the danger to himself in his anxiety to help. He could not penalize him for his charitable motives unless he was shown to have been positively negligent.