COMPENSATION CLAIM

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18206, 29 September 1933, Page 9

COMPENSATION CLAIM

INJURY TO AN EYE ! AN' UNUSUAL POSITION APPEAL COURT ARGUMENT (Per Press Association.) WELLINGTON, last night. Tin- Court of Appeal to-day heard argument upon the ease of Loves v. Smyth, stated for its opinion by Mr Justice Frazer, .judge of the Arbitration Court. At Auckland, ou September ill, 1932, Neville Albert Loyes, of Titirnugi, issued a. writ iu the Court of Arbitration against Alfred John Smyth, of Waitakere. farmer, alleging that while clearing gorse on Smyth's property a piece of gorse 'penetrated his left eye, and as a. result he lost permanently the use of that ye. He claimed Cl7l Ms Sd, being the deficiency of payments for the period of total incapacity, and the amount due for the total loss of the sight of the eye as fixed by the second schedule of the Workers’ Compensation Act. 1 The action came ou for hearing ou February 23, but was adjourned for a joint medical report by the medical advisers of both parties. That report was that the left eye, without a correcting lens, had such a defective vision as tube industrially useless, and as far as binocular vision was eon-j corned, was useless except for the purpose of self-preservation. The injury ■ did not entail any loss of ability on the part of the plaintiff to perform his work as a farm-hand. It was also agreed between the pa tries that the left eye, with the aid of appropriate glasses, was capable of normal vision, ' but only with the right eye out. of action, owing to the inability of the two eyes to function together.

THE COURT’S POWERS

Counsel for the defendant contended, on these facts, -that the action was on all fours with previous decisions of the Arbitration Court where it had been held that such an inquiry did not. entitle the plaintiff to claim compensation.

Counsel for the plaintiff, however, requested the judge of the Arbitration Court to state a, case on the

facts for tin; opinion of the Court or Appeal, which was done and that case was argued to-day. The question asked for the opinion of the court whether the plaintiff suffered the total loss of the sight of one eye within the meaning of the second schedule of the Workers’ Compensation Act, 1922.

When the case was called this afternoon, Mr IL F. O’Leary, counsel for the defendant, raised a preliminary objection that the Court of Arbitration had no power to state the ease which it had stated. The question asked of the Court of Appeal was a question of fact, and the Workers’ Compensation Act empowered the Arbitration Court to state eases for fhe Court of Appeal only us to questions of law, and not as to questions of fact. The court said it would consider that point after it heard the rest of the argument. Mr Dunn then proceeded to address the court on the case, and was doing so when the court adjourned.