Child Born Eighteen Months After Accident Held To Be Dependent

Wanganui Chronicle, 27 May 1948, Page 6

Child Born Eighteen Months After Accident Held To Be Dependent

(P.A.) Dunedin, May 26 The question whether a child born 18 months after an accident to his father was a dependent within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation Act, was decided in a reserved judgment given by Judge Ongley in the Compensation Court. The effect of the judgment was to answer the question in the affirmative. The father, Eric Desmond Callaghan, employee of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, Ltd , met with an accident on March 29, 1943. He had then one son, aged about one year. Another son was born on September 29. 1944. The father died, on December 16, 1945, as a result of the accident. “Barry Rugby Callaghan," the judgment said, “as the son of the deceased worker, is a near relative, but the question is whether he was a dependent, namely, whether he was (1) domiciled or resident in New Zealand at the time of the accident; and (2) wholly or partly dependent upon the earnings of the deceased worker at the time of the accident.”

After quoting a section of the Act which pointed out that children of a deceased worker “shall be conclusively presumed to have been dependent on the earnings of that worker at the time of the accident which caused his death," the judgment held that the Court must presume that Barry Rugby Callaghan was so dependent. The judgment added that it must be presumed that Barry Rugby Callaghan was in existence at the time of the accident. “Existence nowhere would be a contradiction,” the judge continued. “It seems to follow that I must give his presumed existence, location and domicile.”

The judgment declared that t¥>e widow. Runa Florence Callaghan, and the sons James Eric Callaghan and Barry Rugby Callaghan were the sole dependents of the deceased worker.