NOVEL COMPENSATION CASE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13480, 3 July 1907, Page 8

NOVEL COMPENSATION CASE.

AN AMENDED AWARD. j. ■• ONE PENNY PER WEEK. [BY TELEGRAPH. —I'RKSS ASSOCIATION.] Napier, Tuesday. A, point of considerable interest in connection with compensation for injuries has just been decided by the Arbitration Court. At the previous sitting of the Court in Napier. Timothy McCarthy applied for the enforcement of an award made in November, 1905. in claimant's favour for the loss of an arm while employed by Messrs. Ross and Son, of Port Ahuriri. The award was for 10s weekly until a. sum total of £300 was made, or the same ended or redeemed under the provisions of the Act. A counter-claim was filed by respondents to have the payments extinguished, on the ground that McCarthy was now earning the same wages as he was at the time of the accident.

The Court reserved judgment, which was delivered to-day, and is as follows:'"If in the present ease the claimant had been applying for an award, the Court could not have awarded him more than a nominal amount in respect of. the. period since, he obtained his present employment, and "it follows, therefore, that payments under the existing order of the Court should Ik; reduced to a nominal amount. The Court has power to make the reduction operate retrospectively as from the date on which the claimant's incapacity ceased, and we make an order reducing the amount to one penny per week as from February 26, 1907. If at" any time hereafter the claimant is unable, owing to his injury, to earn at least £1 per week, he may apply to this Court to increase the weekly payment."