Negligence vs Insurance where does this leave us

[skippydiesel]

36 minutes ago, turboplanner said:

I .................................................................

 

I agree that the law is not affordable for most people, but people disagree and will not give in. 

 

 

And out of disagreement, the law was born - I agree the service is a necessary evil, however we have allowed it to turn into a hydra headed monster, that invades every facet of our lives, often to no discernible benefit. Is it not way past the time when we should be looking at rationalising/simplifying the legal codes that are necessary for every human grouping from the family unit to national society???

[KRviator]

After a quick read through the judgement, the thing that struck me was the Judge finding the pilot, in effect, negligent for screwing up the approach resulting in the subsequent go-around. I've lost count of the number of times I've abandoned a landing into Somersby because I didn't like how things were going, but does that make me negligent? I'd argue not at all. Flying visually is purely a seat-of-the-pants judgement exercise. What one person thinks is a mile away might be two, but that difference between two individuals is a 300' difference on the glidepath...

 

There's no argument he royally screwed up the approach, (I think every pilot has done that several times) but he abandoned it and went around, was still within the OLS protected area and hit something that shouldn't have been there. If he were low on the departure profile, ok, he might be negligent, but he was above the protected area and had the right to expect it to be free of obstacles - no matter how good his initial survey of the airport environs was in his overflight.

[kgwilson]

15 hours ago, turboplanner said:

I've had personal experience of your system. My wife tripped on a concrete step undercut (form faulty forming) and broke her knee. The owner knew the step had been incorrectly made because by the time we went back next day the fault had been ground off (luckily I had a photo). Total costs which included medical in NZ and Aus, extra seat space in aircraft came to about $6,000.00. We got zero from the ACC. 

As a tourist you will be covered for medical expenses but not permanent injuries, property loss or disrupted air travel etc. That's why you should have travel insurance. Seems fair to me given you don't pay tax there other than GST on goods & services while there & you can get the GST back when you take things home with you.

 

The system has been around a long time & works. I broke my arm hang gliding in 1981. Everything was covered & because my wrist was not as agile as it used to be I was assessed as having a certain % disability & got a cheque for $2,500.00. I bought a new glider with it seeing I'd smashed up the old one. Removing the right to sue was one of the best bits of legislatioin they came up with. The system is self funding and has resulted in many costs being reduced.

[skippydiesel]

2 hours ago, kgwilson said:

..........................................Removing the right to sue was one of the best bits of legislatioin they came up with. The system is self funding and has resulted in many costs being reduced.

Good -on -yah! KGW

[turboplanner]

2 hours ago, kgwilson said:

As a tourist you will be covered for medical expenses but not permanent injuries, property loss or disrupted air travel etc. That's why you should have travel insurance. Seems fair to me given you don't pay tax there other than GST on goods & services while there & you can get the GST back when you take things home with you.

 

The system has been around a long time & works. I broke my arm hang gliding in 1981. Everything was covered & because my wrist was not as agile as it used to be I was assessed as having a certain % disability & got a cheque for $2,500.00. I bought a new glider with it seeing I'd smashed up the old one. Removing the right to sue was one of the best bits of legislatioin they came up with. The system is self funding and has resulted in many costs being reduced.

I can't remember about travel insurance in my wife's case. Maybe it didn't cover what happened. 

I agree it seems fair that if you don't pay tax in NZ you can't claim back.

 

We have third party cover for our motor vehicle accidents in Australia which all people who own a car contribute to, and it pays out on overseas tourists.

 

Let's say its clear the NZ system doesn't overseas people for costs such as a Quadriplegic case; I would expect tourists would be warned of that and advised to take out, say a $15 million policy. So then if the boat on the Shotover river hit a rock you would be covered for life by your own policy, nd the premiums wouldn't be big because the number of visitors who never came back is minute.

 

However, I wonder if we are talking about different things here. I certainly found reference to Donoghue v Stevenson the last time I did a search, and this link is not only discussing precedents, but naming NZ plaintiffs and Defendants, so someone is suing somewhere on the same precedent as Australia.   zlii.org/nz/journals/NZLRFSP/1991/2.pdf

 

 

 

[turboplanner]

3 hours ago, KRviator said:

After a quick read through the judgement, the thing that struck me was the Judge finding the pilot, in effect, negligent for screwing up the approach resulting in the subsequent go-around. I've lost count of the number of times I've abandoned a landing into Somersby because I didn't like how things were going, but does that make me negligent? I'd argue not at all. Flying visually is purely a seat-of-the-pants judgement exercise. What one person thinks is a mile away might be two, but that difference between two individuals is a 300' difference on the glidepath...

 

There's no argument he royally screwed up the approach, (I think every pilot has done that several times) but he abandoned it and went around, was still within the OLS protected area and hit something that shouldn't have been there. If he were low on the departure profile, ok, he might be negligent, but he was above the protected area and had the right to expect it to be free of obstacles - no matter how good his initial survey of the airport environs was in his overflight.

The judge explains why he made the judgement in the transcript, and don't forget the pilot was judged only partly to blame in these judgements.

This incident is not necessarily over, which is why we can't go into a lot of detail.

[SplitS]

The council is a soft target the judge gets to "give" this woman "free" money. It will be reduced on appeal.

1.5M with zero injury is nonsense.

[Wirraway]

The aircraft involved is currently for sale.  It has been re-built.
Just out of interest

[old man emu]

Reading from the Judgement, I was struck by the description of the aircraft turning to the left of the centreline after takeoff. The turn was said to have been quite noticeable. I wonder if, given the description of the second T & G,  the aircraft was in the early stages of a stall/spin, and only the running into the Ferris Wheel prevented the usual outcome of a stall/spin.

 

The other thing that struck me from reading the judgement was that the Court accepted the experts saying that the standard of pilotage was "below standard". A Court is supposed to be a seeker of fact. It will accept opinion evidence, based on the analysis of facts - drawing a reasonable conclusion - but that opinion has to be reasonably objective. 

 

In this case, to say that the pilotage was below standard was an subjective opinion. By what standard did they judge the pilotage? I believe that the fact was that the pilot had about 80 hours or so of experience. He had obtained his RAA Pilot's Certificate, but at those hours - which would have included all the time since he started to learn to fly - he could be compared to a P-plater. The Experts were all very high time pilots. Were their opinions based on their own large store of experience and knowledge, or did they put themselves in the mind of the P-plater?

 

What are the criteria for good pilotage? Obviously the pilot had met some recognised standard to be issued with a pilot's certificate. The owner of the aircraft obviously felt that the pilot was competent to carry out the flight, since the aim of the flight was to be able to display a locally built aircraft to the public, and all that entails for a manufacturer. Who of us hasn't made a poor pilotage decision early in our flying experience? How many high-time pilots make mistakes. There is not hard and fast standard for pilotage against which a pilot's actions can be measured. In fact, the experts all agreed that in this case, the first approach and go-round indicated good pilotage. Did this pilot's level of pilotage suddenly fall dramatically as he flew downwind? The Court should have placed no weight on those opinions.