RELIEF WORKER'S CLAIM

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21278, 3 September 1932, Page 12

RELIEF WORKER'S CLAIM

EDUCATION BOARD SUED MALINGERING ALLEGED 11 STATEMENTS BY DOCTORS The 'Auckland Education Board was the defendant in a claim for compensation brought against it by Joseph Peter Reseta'r, labourer, in the Arbitration Court yesterday. Resetar was engaged as a relief' worker on the board's property at th& T raining College on August 6, 1931, when /he met with an accident. While he was placing a stone in position on a stone wall its weight came back on him, his foot slipped and he suffered injury to his back. > Plaihtiff claimed that he was still under medical treatment and still disabled from earning wages. He had been paid compensation at the rate of £1 13s 4d weekly until October 9 and asked that that bo continued to the present date and for such further compensation as the Court might lind reasonable. The board claimed that Hesetar had fully recovered from the injury by October 26 and paid into Court £7 8s 8d in full settlement of the claim. Resfelar said that since May he had been for three months in Mount Eden prison for disobeying an order for the maintenance' of his wife and family. He worked in the quarry there, but did only light/ knapping. He was a Yugoslav. There had been nothing wrong with his back before the accident.

Astyed how many medical men had examined him on his own account, Resetar recalled the names of five and agreed when a sixth was suggested to him, apart prison surgeon. "Very Dramatic Fall" Dr. W. S. Brockway stated that last December Resetar could hardly walk and was' quite unable to do any work. His condition might vary from day to day. There were some indications of chronic neuralgia. Dr. S. A. Bull characterised Resetar's symptoms as entirely subjective. Light work would probably do him good. "I think he is genuine," said witness. "I do not think he is malingering. He is intensely neurasthenic." Counsel for the board said the defence was that the man was a malingerer. "This man staged a very dramatic fall in the cell for my benefit, which in my could not have been anything but malingering," said Dr. C. H. Tevrsley. Referring to his diary recording examinations of Resetar in prison, witness said he had reached the conclusion that Resetar was malingering and ordered him out to work. He went out and did the work. In answer to plaintiff's counsel, Dr. Tewsley said he never looked upon a man as a malingerer until he had absolutely proved it to his own satisfaction. "Work is the only cure, I think," he added. Dr. K. S. Mac'ky, who treated Resetar at the hospital two weeks after the accisaid he was rather suspicious of him at ffrst, but gave him the benefit of the doubt. He grew more suspicious when on October 2 he found him walking over Grafton Bridge perfectly freely. On October 5/ he saw him jumping off a tramcar and hopping off the safety zone quite briskly. His Honor said the Court had a choice between neurasthenia and malingering. Thpre was nothing'physical to go on. No Physical Disability

"Ip my opinion he was undoubtedly a malingerer," said Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, referring to an examination he made on November 10. "He performed with great slowness any movements I asked him to perform and gave me the impression of grossly exaggerating his injury. I do not as a case of neurasthenia but of malingering."

Mr. Justice Frazer, giving the Court's decision, said it was clear that no physical disability remained. The strain experienced, if any, must have been a slight one, from which he would recover in a short time. The question was whether after that time ho suffered from traumatic neurasthenia or was simply malingering. The weight of the evidence was that he was malingering, but the Court felt boiled to make allowance for the admittedly neurasthenic tendencies of his race.

It might be that plaintiff had developed what they sometimes called a "secondary" neurasthenia, from brooding over the accident and perhaps other troubles and got himself into a nervous condition that caused him to imagine that he could not work. That was the most the Court could say for him, having given him the benefit of every ■possible doubt. The case still remained one of secondary neurasthenia and not the real traumatic neurasthenia, and that being so, Resetar could not recover more than the amount due for the physical injury. Judgment •would.be for plaintiff for the amount paid into Court, plus a further live days' compensation. The plaintiff really failed on the main issue.