DEFINITION OF A FACTORY

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22335, 24 February 1938, Page 13

DEFINITION OF A FACTORY

APPEAL IN SUPREME COURT WORK IN TIMBER YARD DISCUSSED Whether a timber yard is a factory according to the definition in the Factories Act was argued yesterday in the Supreme Court before Mr Justice Northcroft. The case was an appeal against the decision by Mr E. C. Levvey, S.M., in convicting Charles E. Otley, manager of C. E. Otley, Ltd., of having failed to pay timber stackers and yard labourers for the Labour Day holiday. Messrs J. F. B. Stephenson, of Wellington, and R. A. Young appeared for Otley, and Mr A. W. Brown for the Labour Department. Mr Stephenson said that the issue was whether timber stackers employed in a timber yard were workers in a factory within the meaning of the Factories Act. If the yard was, in fact, a factory, the appellant would have had to pay wages on Labour Day. The case was important, because there were hundreds of timber yards in New Zealand in which business was carried on substantially as it was in the appellant’s yard. In the past the yard had never been regarded as a factory, and the case against Otley had been brought to lest the definition.

Mi' Brown remarked that he did not think the case was of such importance as Mr Stephenson gave to it. The meaning of the section had been fully discussed twice recently, once by the Court of Appeal, and a factory had been defined. The whole question for the Court was whether the Magistrate had correctly found that the place was a factory. Mr Stephenson said that a factory had been defined in the act as any building, office, or place in which one or more persons were employed. He submitted that a timber yard was not a building, office, or place within the meaning of the act, and that the dry-ing-kiln plant in the yard was not’a factory, because it was not a building or place in which any workers were employed.

Mr Brown submitted that it was clear the men in the yard were engaged in conditioning the timber by loading the trucks that carried it to the kiln. If it was found that the men were so engaged, the question then was whether the open yard or the kiln were part of a factory. He submitted that they were. After further legal argument had been hoaid from both sides, the dispute was referred to the Full Court in Wellington.