COMPENSATION CASE

Otago Witness, Issue 2856, 9 December 1908, Page 34

COMPENSATION CASE

AUCKLAND. December 7.

The Arbitration Court has^given its decision in the compensation ca.«e brought by John Puhi Matthews, against Gibson and Fyfield The re^-pondentb have a sawmill near Taumaranui. Un June 22 Harry Puhi Matthews, a son of the claimant, while working at the mill, was accidentally killed. The claimant alleges that he and the other members of his family were partially dependent on the earnings of the deceased, and claims £200 ac compensation. The respondents dispute their liability to pay coinpenration on the ground that tho claimant was not the father of the deceased within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation for Accidents Act. The claimant is n Maori. In or about the year 1889 he took as a wife one Orewa, who is a Maori and a member of the Ngatihuri tribe. The union was arranged in accordance with Maori custom, but there was nothing in the nature of a marriage ceremony. The- claimant and Orewa have lived together since as husband and wife, and have had nine children. The deceased, Harry Puhi Matthews, was the eldest of theee children, and was born on November 4, 1890. In November, 1896, a ceremony of marriage between the claimant and Orewa was performed without any license under the Marriage Acts by the Rev. Taimoana Hapimana, a duly ordained clergyman of the Church of England. The application for arbitration yrat lxled in the present case on Sept-ember

29 last. On October 23 the case was partly heard," and then adjourned. On October 27, and befote the- hearing was resumed, the claimant registered the birth of his deceased son, -Harry Puhi Matthews, under the provisions of "The Legitimatisation Act, 1894," and on the same day registered the births of three of the other children who had been born to him and Orewa. The question that arose on these facts was -whether the claimant was the father of the deceased for the purposes of the Workers' Compensation for Accidents Act. The court held that he was, and ordered the payment to him of £130 compensation.

CHRISTCHURCH, December 4.

Mr Justice Sim delivered the interpretation of the awards of the Arbitration Court in the Canterbury industrial district farm labourers' award. Musterers, when employed to muster sheep for any purpose, shall be paid not less than 10s per day, and £2 2b per week if engaged for a week or more, with an additional payment of 10s for any Sunday mustering. The provisions, of the award do not apply to any worker employed regularly as a farm or station hand who assists in mustering or packs for musterers. An employer is not allowed to engage a worker really as a musterer and evade paying musterere' wages, by calling him a station hand.