COMPENSATION ACT

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 8, 9 July 1938, Page 13

COMPENSATION ACT

MEDICAL BOARD

IMPORTANT POINTS

CERTIFICATE CONCLUSIVE?

Points of importance to both employers and workers in the operation of sub-sections of the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act, 1936, were argued in the Court of Appeal yesterday in a case stated from the Court of Arbitration by Mr. Justice O'Regan. The Court of Appeal was asked whether a medical certificate given by a medical board set up under the Act was conclusive evidence that a man had recovered from accident injuries when examined, whether the Court of Arbitration could deal with his claim notwithstanding the findings of the board, and whether the admitted and proved facts were a complete defence.

On the Bench were the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers). Mr. Justice Blair, and Mr. Justice Fair. Counsel for the defendant company argued that the findings of the medical board could .not be upset in the Court of Arbitration, to which the case might be carried later. ' Edward James Ashby, a waterside worker, was the plaintiff, and the defendant the Shaw, Savill, and Albion Co., Ltd. The worker was represented by Mr. F. W. Ongley, and Mr. E. D. Blundell appeared for the company. ' ' . '

Ashby claimed that on July 6, 1937, a' heavy trestle struck him on the chest while he was working and fractured a ijib, totally incapacitating him for an indefinite period. He was earning £5 6s 6d a week, and claimed a sum computed from that amount. ~'.'.. The defendant company denied that the' plaintiff was more than temporarily incapacitated by the accident. It was contended, secondly, that if the plaintiff were still incapacitated it was not the result of the accident; and, thirdly, that the medical board had certified that he had recovered from the accident and iiis then disability was due to heart disease, in the causation of which the injuries had had ho material influence.

The medical board, consisting of Dr. E. Gordon Anderson, Dr. D. Whyte, and Dr. J. M. Twhigg, examined the plaintiff on September 15, and gave a certificate expressing the opinion that he was unfit for work, but as the result of heart disease which had not been caused by the accident. Sufficient time had elapsed for him to have recovered from any injury. :

Mr. Blundell, it was agreed, should open the case. He said the action turned on the construction of subsections 1 and 2 of section 9 of the Workers' Compensation Amendment Act, 1936, which made provision fox the first time in New Zealand for the appointment of a. medical board of three doctors. The certificate that the plaintiff had recovered, he submitted, was binding on the Court of Arbitration, which might not entertain evidence to the contrary, and the Act gave statutory authority for the findings of the doctors to be substituted for the decisions of the Court of Arbitration.' ,'; ....■." ■ '~.-. :;v\ ; , ,:

Mr. Ongley submitted that the determination of the question depended on what was referable'to the board under the Act and what- was the finding of the board. There were only two questions that could arise—whether a man was fit for work, and, if he was unfit, whether his disability was due to the accident.

The Court reserved its decision;