COMPENSATION COURT

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26127, 1 June 1950, Page 3

COMPENSATION COURT

CLAIM AGAINST CITY COUNCIL

EVIDENCE GIVEN FOR DEFENCE

Further witnesses for the defence will be called in the Compensation Court today, before Judge Ongley, in the claim by Muriel Josephine Wood, a widow, against the Christchurch City Council for £1750 compensation for the death of her husband, Thomas William Wood.

Wood, an employee of the City Council, collapsed at work on October 20. 1949, and died the following day. Medical evidence was that the cause of death was toxaemia due to peritonitis following a perforation of a duodenal ulcer. Ms B. A. Barrer is appearing for the plaintiff and Mr W. R. Lascelles, with whom is Mr J. G. Leggat, for the council.

When the hearing was continued yesterday, the third day, evidence was given for the defence.

John Richard Tyndall, foreman in charge of the City Council’s St. Albans yard, said that Wood took no part in filling or placing the bags of grit in Halton street on the morning of October 20, after the tar plant upset and caught fire. Witness never saw Wood get off the footpath. When witness reached Halton street the fire had been put out, the men were standing about and Wood was holding one of the horses. Witness directed the men to cover the tar spilt on the road and to bag some grit to use as chocks for the wheels when the tar boiler was being righted. Wood was then sitting on the footpath and, when witness went over to him later. Wood said he was very sick. Wood seemed to be in acute pain. He would have seen Wood if the latter had been helping in any of the work done immediately before Wood collapsed.

Charles Graham Riley, a physician, said that, in his opinion, sudden excitement could not cause an ulcer to rupture, and what happened in Halton street had no effect on the perforation of the ulcer which caused Wood’s death. In his opinion it was, in all probability, a case of a natural process rupture.

Robert William Gibbons, a council employee, said that, on the last two days before the accident. Wood complained of suffering from stomach trouble. When the tar boiler upset and' caught fire on October 20 the horse was taken out of the shafts and witness led it away. Wood went with him and stayed to hold the horse. After the fire was put out, witness went for the horse and Wood returned with him. Witness did not see Wood for a minute or two and then saw him sitting on the footpath, against the fence. Witness saw the men placing the grit bags under the wheels of the tar plant and Wood was not with them. He did not see Wood do anything after they returned to the tar boiler with the horse. The Court adjourned until to-day.