COMPENSATION SOUGHT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22122, 28 November 1933, Page 5

COMPENSATION SOUGHT

CLAIM BY HOUSEKEEPER. JUDGMENT FOR DEFENDANTS A claim under the Workers’ Compensation Act by Mary Muir Owen, a housekeeper, against Robert Henry Burrell, Albert Burrell and Hector Burrell, as the executors of the estate of the late Charles Burrell, hotelkeeper, was heard in the Arbitration Court yesterday. morning. The plaintiff, in her statement of claim, said that in April last she was employed by the defendants as a housekeeper at the Oval Hotel. On the morning, of April 21, at 6 o’clock, she was unable to gain admission by the front door and went to the side of the hotel to awaken a male servant. While retracing her steps she accidentally slipped and broke her leg in two places. She claimed compensation at the rate of £2 16s a week during her period of incapacitation from work. The defence was that the injury did not arise out of the plaintiff’s employment. Mr J. G. Warrington appeared for the plaintiff and Mr J. M. Paterson for the defendants.

Mr Warrington, in opening the case for the plaintiff, stated that as housekeeper Mrs Owen usually slept on the premises. She was, however, accustomed to come and go as she pleased, and on occasions to go out at night. The night before the accident she went out to visit a friend. Heavy rain began to fall, and she decided to stay all niglit as she had done on previous occasions. As it was necessary for her to return early next morning to' prepare breakfast for some guests who were to leave by train for Central Otago, she arose shortly before G o’clock and went down to the hotel. As none of the employees was allowed to have keys she could not immediately gain admittance. She could not arouse anyone by knocking on the front door, and went up Jones street, drawing ‘the attention of a porter by knocking on an iron fence. While hurrying back to the hotel she slipped as she turned to take a short cut through the neighbouring service station. As a result siie broke her leg and was in hospital for some weeks. The only points in dispute seemed to be whether the accident arose out of her employment and whether she was able to resume her employment. The plaintiff, in the course of her evidence, d uied that she could have obtained a key if she had asked for it. She admitted that she had slipped on the same spot a few months previously, but denied that she had been told by the licensee not to go through the service station.

James Renfrew White, a surgeon, said that the plaintiff had i ot yet recovered sufficiently from her injury to resume her usual work. Her earning power, in his opinion, would, be permanently affected to the extent of one-third. Mr Paterson said that the legal pontgntion of the defence was that when a person during his employment went* out for his own purposes his employment was interrupted, I.t was not resumed until a moment of time when work was actually begun. Evidence was given by Albert and Hector Burrell, who stated tnat they had advised the plaintiff not to go through the service station.

In giving the judgment of the court Mr Justice Frazer said that the only question to bo decided was whether the plaintiff at the time of her was within the scope or sphere of her employment. The evidence was clear that the scope of her employment was inside the Oval Hotel. The plaintiff had t-J satisfy the court that her injury arose out of ■ d in the course of her employment. Her work, however, did not commence until she reached the interior of the hotel. It might safely be said that if the door had been open and the plaintiff, in stepping through, had slipped, s l ' l would then have been covered by the Act, but she had not reached that stage. Her trip to rouse the porter was not part of her duties. , As she had not reached her duty she had not reached the sphere of her employment. Judgment would be for the defendants, with leave apply for costs.