COURT BOUND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 167, 18 July 1938, Page 7

COURT BOUND.

MJEDICAL CERTIFICATE.

COMPENSATION CLAIM.

APPEAL COURT DECISION.

(By Tvle?raph.—Press Association.)

WELLINGTON, this day.

The Court of Appeal to-day delivered judgment in the case in which the question was asked whether the certificate of a medical committee appointed pursuant to the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act, 1936, i≤ binding and conclusive on the Arbitration Court. The case was stated for opinion bv the Arbitration Court in the action of Edward James Ashby. of Wellington, waterside worker, against the Shaw Savill and Albion Company, Limited.

When working for the defendant company in 1937 plaintiff was struck on the chest and injured by a falling trestle. Having made a claim for compensation, he submitted himself in September, 1937, to examination by the Wellington District Medical Committee, consisting of Drs, Anderson, Whyte and Thwigg. The committee's finding and certificate was to the effect that plaintiff had recovered from the effects of the injury mentioned, but that he was unfit for work bv reason of heart disease, which wa*s not influenced or caused in any way by the accident. Defendant thereupon ceased the payment of compensation. Plaintiff, however, not being satisfied, brought an action in the Arbitration Court, to which the defendant pleaded that the certificate of the committee was conclusive evidence that plaintiff had wholly recovered from the accident and that the Court had no jurisdiction to consider the claim. Those points were reserved for the Court of Appeal.

•The Appeal Court held that the certificate of the medical committee <nrcn pursuant of Section 9 of the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act, 1936, is binding and conclusive on the Court of Arbitration.

The Chief Justice, Sir Michael Myere, in hie judgment, in which Mr. Justice Blair and Mr. Justice Fair concurred, said: "I think that reading the certificate as a whole, it necessarily means that the employment accident* had no material effect of the causation of plaintiff's condition ae it existed at the time of the examination. That k to say. it had no material effect on the causation or aggravation of the disease. It tseemt to me that these are all the facte found by the medical committee as to the worker's fitness for work within the meaning of the sub-section (2) Section 9, and that the effect of the certificate is that the plaintiff recovered from injuries sustained by his employment accident, and that hie present incapacity is due to an independent disease and not attributable to the accident. The certii ficate is by Statue made conclusive M to the facts eo certified, and the result is that as far as plaintiff's injuries by accident are concerned, his unfitness for work disappeared, and that hie present unfitness is a matter for which the employer k not liable. On this view the certificate is a complete answer to plaintiff's action, and the defendant cannot be required by the Court of Arbitration to make any further payments of comI pensation as from the date of the certiI ficate."