A RELIEF WORKER’S DEATH

Evening Star, Issue 21291, 21 December 1932, Page 10

A RELIEF WORKER’S DEATH

INTERESTING POINT IN COMPENSATION CASE £P«b Uwitjid Fcxfi -Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, December 21. . The death of a relief worker through an accident when travelling on a lorry after work formed the basis of an interesting compensation case in the Arbitration Court to-day. Argument centred round the liability of certain parties for the accident and whether the relief worker owed a duty to his employers to bo travelling in a lorry when he met his death. The plaintiff in the action was Elizabeth Sarah O’Neill, widow, of Rangiora, and the defendants were the Rangiora Borough Council and the North Canterbury Electric Power Board. The Alliance Insurance Company and the Yorkshire Insurance Company were'interested in the action as third parties. Five counsel are engaged in the case. On his journey home to Rangiora from work O’Neill was sitting at the back of a lorry with the tarpaulin round him, when the rope of the tarpaulin got caught in the wheels, and he was pulled off and killed instantly. The defendants and the insurance companies deny that O’Neill was in their eniployment when he was killed.