Dairy Factory Work

Manawatu Times, Volume 63, Issue 153, 1 July 1938, Page 7

Dairy Factory Work

Working Manager Not

"Worker”

FULL COURT’S IMPORTANT DECISION (Special to “Times”) WELLINGTON, Last Night. A question of the greatest importance to tho dairy industrj r , particularly to about 10 facte lies, was lecvitid in judgments delivered to-day by the Full Court, which allowed an appeal against a conviction by Mr. W. H. Woodward, S.M., of a working manager of a dairy factory. Tho Court held that a working manager did not come within the definition of “worker” in the Factories Amendment Act, 1936, and quashed the conviction. The appellant was Percy Smith, working manager of the Waitoitoi Cooperative Dairy Co., Ltd., and he appealed against the Magistrate’s judgment which convicted him of allowing a worker to bo employed for seven days in a week. At the period of the offence of which Smith was convicted there were employed in the factory two men besides himself, though at different times in the year luoro than two men were employed. The Magistrate held that Smith was a worker within the meaning of tho section, and ho decided that the factory could not, in rospect of the period in question,* be classed as a factory in which not more than two workers were regularly employed, and it could not., therefore, obtain the benefit of the exemption. The questions for tho Full Court were whether a worker manger was a worker within the meaning of tho section, and what waß the meaning of ti e words w regularly employed” there used. The Court consisted of the Chief Justice (Sir Michael Myers), Mr. Justice Blair, Mr. Justice Kennedy, Mr. Justice Johnston, and Mr. justice Fair. Mr. J. F. B. Stevenson appeared for the appellant, and Mr. C. H. Tnvlor, of the Crown Law Office, for J le respondent, Frederick "Wilson, an inspector of factories, who laid the information against Smith. The Full Court, in tivo joiut judgments held that Smith whs not a worker under the Act, but agteed with the "Magistrate’s interpretation of “regularly employed.” As tho Magistrate convicted Smith, however, on the ground that there were three workers, including Smith, the conviction could not stand.