PORTER’S CLAIM UPHELD

Press, Volume LXXXVII, Issue 26409, 1 May 1951, Page 9

PORTER’S CLAIM UPHELD

TUBERCULOSIS ACT APPLICABLE COURT OF APPEAL’S JUDGMENT (New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, April 30. The Court of Appeal to-day delivered judgment in a case in which Patrick Jamas Farrell claimed compensation from the North Canterbury Hospital Board. Farrell alleged that while working at the board’s sanatorium at Cashmere he had before September 20, 1948, contracted tuberculosis, f.nd that by Virtue of the Tuberculos s Act compensation was payable to him. At Lie hearing of the action Farrell gave evidence showing how his work as a porter had brought him into contact with tuberculous patients, but under cross-examination he admitted that he became engaged at Easter, 1948, to a female patient of the sanatorium suffering from tuberculosis. The questions for decision were whether the presumption contained in a section of tne Tuberculosis Act applied for Farrell’s benefit, and if it did from what date. It its judgment the Court of Appeal concluded that although the disease was contracted before the start of the act, the presumption of the board’s liability under the act was established as from that date, April 1, 1949. Farrell was allowed the costs of the proceedings in the Court of Appeal on the lowest stale as from a distance, together with the disbursements. Mr B. A. Barrer (Christchurch) appeared for the plaintiff and Mr W. P. Shorland (Wellington) for the North Canterbury Hospital Board.