WORKERS' CLAIMS

Waikato Independent, Volume XXX, Issue 3203, 25 February 1930, Page 2

WORKERS' CLAIMS

COMPENSATION BENEFITS.

ACTION AGAINST THE CROWN.

The protection given by the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Act to those who are injured in the course of their employment was explained to the jury by Mr P. J. o'Regan in the Wellington Supreme Court a' few days .ago. It was explained that a petition against the Crown differed from an ordinary claim, although in effect it resembled an, action for damages against a citizen. The information is of general interest.

"The Workers' Compensation Act is a comparatively new Temedy offered to injured persons," Mr O'Kegan said. "The proceedings in which you are now participating could have been taken before the Act was passed. Were this case brought against a citizen instead of against the Crown it would bo an action for damages. It is termed a petition of right. That right exists independent of the Workers' Compensation Act, and the Act is careful to specify that it takes .away no legal remedy that a person possessed before it was passed.

"An action for damages must be based on an allegation of negligence, but the Compensation Act does not depend on negligence at all. It depends upon no breach of duty on the part of an employer. All an injured man has to prove is that he was injured by an accident arising out of his employment. Even although.it might have been a 'pure' accident or quite unavoidable, he would still be entitled to compensation.

"But you will understand that the remedy prescribed by the Compensation Act is, after all, a very limited one. It allows only for two-thirds of the average weekly earnings and in non-fatal cases only £1 is allowed for medical expenses. In the case of permanent injury such as in this case the claim is in practice compounded by the payment of a lump sum. However, a lump sum, even: in the case of the most severe injury or the highest wages, does not exceed £IOOO. In practice it cannot amount to £IOOO because as a matter of law the only right conf erred apart from the agreement of the partics is for a recurring weekly payment of six years.

"In practice the maximum payment is not actually paid unless an injured man draws his payment every week for the whole period of liability. If the payments are sufficiently high to reach the amount in six years, then the man will draw his tem of insurance for workers against in juries received by accident."