JUDGMENT FOR WIDOW

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 38, 14 February 1941, Page 9

JUDGMENT FOR WIDOW

'AN UNUSUAL CASE

Compensation to the extent of £200, with costs, has been awarded Marija Lipanovich, of Lumbarda, Yugoslavia, a widow, in a claim against Amner's Lime Company (1934), Ltd., of Napier, according to a judgment of .Mr. Justice O'Regan, delivered in the Compensation Court. The case had been before the Court on several occasions, this time to.settle the extent of dependency. "Although there is no evidence that deceased made any remittances to his wife during the four years preceding his death," said his Honour, discussing the evidence, "I am satisfied that she has suffered a substantial loss in that, had her husband lived, ere long the family would have been reunited in a New Zealand home. "There is no exact method of fixing the compensation in a case of this class; indeed, the very language of the relevant provisions of the statute, 'reasonable and proportionate to the injury,' is in itself vague, and so I agree with Mr. Justice Stringer that any assessment in this class of case 'must be largely guesswork.'" He thought, said his Honour, that the unusual circumstances of the case justified him in awarding the compensation already stated. Mr. T. C. Webb, of Auckland, appeared for the plaintiff, and Dr. O. C. Mazengarb for the defendant company.