Murakami Estate v Henderson

Itoku Murakami was the father of a three year old girl named Hideko Murakami who lived in Steveston, described as ‘an insalubrious location, upon which is an agglomeration of small houses and shops’ with a ‘sluggish, rather dead, insanitary looking ribbon of water, really a large ditch or small slough’ within the protective dyke in Steveston (784). It was in Steveston that a truck driver, Henderson, hit and killed Hideko Murakami despite his ‘vision [being] in no way obscured’ and having ‘full control of his truck,’ which rendered the judgment in favour of the plaintiff with $500 as it was stated that ‘[h]e could have easily proceeded along avoiding the child’ (785).