FULL COMPENSATION ALLOWED

Press, Volume LXXX, Issue 24371, 25 September 1944, Page 6

FULL COMPENSATION ALLOWED

r ♦ 5 BRAKEMAN’S DEATH AFTER INJURY > Maximum compensation of £IOOO, : including the amount already paid, is 1 granted Catherine Dunshuir Morgan . of Stockton, and her three children, in . a reserved judgment of the Compensa- ; tion Court, delivered by Mr Justice O’Regan. Mrs Morgan claimed that t her husband. Noah Thomas Morgan. . died as a result of injury by accident l in the course of his employment with . the Westport-Stockton Coal Company . as a brakeman. At the hearing Mr W r D. Taylor appeared for plaintiff and Mr J. W. Hannan for the defendant 1 company. 1 The history of the. case showed that x Morgan strained his right leg when , he vent to return a derailed truck to 1 the line. After a period off work he . carried on for 10 months, but was sub- , ject to attacks of pain in the leg. The accident occurred in October, 1942. and in the following August it was necessary to amputate Morgan’ right leg .above the knee. Dr. A. B. Pearson, pathologist at the Christchurch Hospital, reported that ■ parts of the limb removed were afflicted with Buerger’s disease. Morgan ' continued to have* spasms of pain and cramp, and died suddenly last January. “Blood clotting is - characteristic of Buerger’s disease when it has reached a certain stage, and it not infrequently happens that the great artery of the lungs becomes occluded by a large clot, causing instant death.’’ his Honour said. Dr. Pearson gave evidence that disablement was precipitated by the accident, and that collateral circulation was or destroyed gs the result of the effort. A medical referee "•'lied by the Court, Dr. W Gilmour, pathologist at the Auckland Public Hospital, agreed with the views of Dr. Pearson He considered that the straining of the muscles, necessarily involved in the effort, damaged, if it did not destroy, the collateral circulation and so caused the onset of intermittent claudication. )