CLAIM FAILS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23770, 25 September 1940, Page 6

CLAIM FAILS

COMPENSATION CASE

NOT COVERED BY ACT UNUSUAL CIRCUMSTANCES Judgment in a claim under the Workers' Compensation Act was delivered in the Compensation Court yesterday by Mr. Justice O'Regan. The plaintiff, Frederick James Davis, aged 40 (Mr. Dickson), brought action against MacEwan's Machinery, Limited (Mr. Goldstine), and claimed that, in June and July, 1936, while in the defendant firm's employment, the skin of his hands and lace became impregnated with brass castings, and that he had been totally incapacitated through skin cancer that was set up. His Honor said it was a remarkable fact that there w.as no record of n case where a brass-finisher had suffered this type of disablement. The facts in plaintiff's case, however, were too strong to be disregarded, and His Honor was satisfied that plaintiff was suffering from skin cancer as the result of his employment by the defendant company. The evidence before the Court had shown that plaintiff's condition could not have been produced by a single isolated event, but that it had necessarily been produced by a gradual process, and so it could not be a case of injury by accident. "It is to be regretted that no-Order-in-Council hits been issued in this country proclaiming epithelioma (skin cancer) to be an industrial disease," continued the judgment. Plaintiff's cas.o was meritorious, but the conclusion was irresistible that, although he was injured in the course of his employment, the injury was due to a gradual process, for which the law in New Zealand provided no remedy. Plaintiff's case, therefore, failed, and judgment was entered for the defendant company.