“COURT FAR TOO TENDER”

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22336, 25 February 1938, Page 9

“COURT FAR TOO TENDER”

COMPENSATION CLAIMS FOR NEURASTHENIA HIS HONOUR DEFENDS SCALE OP PAYMENT (THE PBE9B Special Service.] WELLINGTON. February 24. A suggestion that the Court was far too tender in dealing with cases of neurasthenia was made by the Wellington City Solicitor (Mr J. O’Shea), during the hearing of a worker’s claim lor compensation in the Court of Arbitration at Wellington to-day. Mr O’Shea said that under the Workers Compensation Act very generous and very proper provision had been made for the benefit of employees who had been injured through no fault of their employers. Too often, however, the granting of compensation in certain cases had’ caused a weakening of the moral fibre of the worker. “There are some men of not very strong character, who, after they have been off a while, become work shy and get into a nervous condition,” said Mr O’Shea. “They make no attempt to get out of it, and their complaint is called neurasthenia. Now neurasthenia may be anything serious, a physical breakdown, shattered nerves, or just pure imagination. This neurasthenia business is getting to be a joke. The Court is far too tender. It is doing these men a moral injury by encouraging them. If it were not for the tenderness of the Court, we would not hear so much about neurasthenia." His Honour Mr Justice O’Regan, who presided, said that there were neurasthenia cases in reports where neurasthenia was not a result of an accident. but was due to a man's brooding on his condition. The authorities were quite plain that in that case compensation was not payable for the condition. He was satisfied that the present case was not. in that category, and that the plaintiff’s condition was perfectly genuine. “It is hardly correct for Mr O’Shea to say that the Court, in dealing with this class of case, encourages men to refuse settlements,” said his Honour. “The Court has made it quite clear a long time back that, generally speaking, what it does in neurasthenia cases is to award compensation to date and three months ahead. The Court has laid it down that if an employer or his insurer offers compensation to date three months ahead, the man refuses that offer at his peril. In other words, the Court will not allow more, and had such an offer been made in this case we would have observed the usual rule.”