HURT ON WAY HOME

King Country Chronicle, Volume XXIV, Issue 3241, 11 December 1930, Page 5

HURT ON WAY HOME

VERDICT FOR EMPLOYER. The degree -of an employer’s liability for an accident to an employee, when he is on his way home after a mission for his employer, was laid down by Mr. Justice Frazer in the Arbitration Court at Wellington on Tuesday. Francis Joseph Morshead, a nurseryman, claimed compensation from Duncan and Davies, Ltd., of New Plymouth, for an injury received in an accident, which occurred in June last. Morshead had been sent to Moturoa by his firm, and his route for the return to New Plymouth was for some portion of the journey the same, whether he returned to the company’s premises or his own home. When the accident occurred, he had passed the place where the two routes separated. “When he reached the junction he had reached the nearest point to the nursery he intended to take,” said His Honour “and from that time, he was no longer in the course of his employment, but was in exactly the same position as any other worker proceeding on his homeward way.” Judgment was given for the defendant company, leave being reserved to it to apply for costs.