KICKED BY HORSE

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23973, 14 June 1943, Page 6

KICKED BY HORSE

FARM MANAGER’S CLAIM WEEKLY COMPENSATION AWARDED "We have Apostolic authority for the proposition that the anger of man worketh not justice, and there, can be no doubt that even honest and justifiable indignation may disable one from appreciating the fact that the subject of his indignation has rights nevertheless,” said Mr Justice O'Regan when delivering the Compensation Court’s judgment in the claim by Thomas Malcolm Leask, farm manager, of Christchurch, against John Robert McKenzie, company director, and the owner of the Roydon Lodge stud farm at Yaldhurst. His Honour found that Leask was entitled to £4 a week during total disablement, and accrued compensation totalling £76. The weekly payments will continue pending the further order of the Court. "Like the generality of sporting men, Mr McKenzie impressed as a generous and humane man,” said his Honour. “He has defended this case because, first, he is indignant, and not unreasonably, at the manner in which the plaintiff made his claim, and second, because he-thinks that, as the plaintiff worked so long after the accident, the claim is not bona fide.” But since the Court was satisfied that Leask had been injured (from the kick of a horse), arising out of and in course of his employment by McKenzie. he was entitled to compensation. Directly Leask had appeared in the box, said Mr Justice O’Regan, he formed the opinion that there "was something abnormal or subnormal about the man” in that, though he gave his age as 47. he looked much older and was- too heavy for his build. Dr. Will had expressed the opinion, in reply to the Judge, that Leask was probably suffering from thyroid deficiency. “Of course, that would be a pre-accident condition,” added his Honour. "but it may be that it affects the plaintiff in that he does not appear to be acute mentally, and it may be that this fact should be noticed in palliation of his laches in connexion with the preferring of his claim.”