WIDOW OF MAN KILLED

Press, Volume C, Issue 29520, 23 May 1961, Page 5

WIDOW OF MAN KILLED

Dependant In Spite Of Remarriage

(N.Z. Press Association)

AUCKLAND, May 22. The widow and three children of a man killed in the course of his employment were total dependants of the deceased worker, even though the widow had since remarried, according to a judgment entered by Judge Dalglish in the Compensation Court at Auckland

The plaintiff. Joan Rose Kinsey, of Whakatane, was awarded a total of £2890. plus costs. against the Whakatane County Council in compensation for the death of her former husband, lan Brian Sloan, on April 1, i 960. A common law action was started on behalf of Sloan's wife and three children, but was abandoned because of the widow's remarriage. At the present hearing, under the Workers’ Compensation Act. it was submitted that the Court should have regard to the changed circumstances of <ghe dependants. and hold that thev were no more than partial dependants.

“In my view the subsequent marriage of the widow makes no difference” said Judge Dalglish, in his judgment. “It does not take either her or any of the children out of the description of ‘total dependants’ left by the worker at his death.”