WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIV, Issue 305, 22 November 1934, Page 5

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION.

PREMIER DEFENDS ENACTMENTS. Per Press Association. WELLINGTON, Nov. 21. Reference was made by the Prime Minister (Rt. Hon. G. W. Forbes) today to criticism of the Workers’ Compensation Act by Mr E. J. Howard, M.P., in endorsing a statement attributed to Mr Justice Reed to the effect that New Zealand was “miles behind England” in certain phases of legislation. Mr Howard’s criticism, said Mr Forbes, appeared to be directed towards that portion of the legislation which abolished the rule as to common employment and might give the impression that the law in New Zealand was less beneficial to the worker in this respect than was the law in England. That was not correct; in fact, the true position was the very opposite. Mr Forbes explained that the rule as to common employment was originally the rule laid down by English Judges, the effect of which was that an employee who was injured by the negligence of a fellow employee had no right to recover damages from his employer. In 18S0 certain exceptions to this rule were made in England by statute ancl the position of the worker in England had not been improved since tnen.

So far as actions for damages, as distinct from claims for workers’ compensation, irrespective of negligence, were concerned, the law in New Zealand as to exceptions to this rule of common employment was the same as in England from 18S2 until the passing of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1908, Section 62 _ of that Act, now replaced by section 67 of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1922,

completely abolished the rule as to common employment. In New Zealand there was, of course, a limit of £IOOO to the amount that an employee injured through a fellow servant’s negligence could get by way of damages at common law, but even with this limit the position in New Zealand was more advantageous to the worker than it was in England. The result, therefore, was, concluded Mr Forbes, that instead of being “miles behind” England in this aspect of its legislation, New Zealand was “miles ahead.”