HEAVY DAMAGES AWARDED

Dominion, Volume 10, Issue 2943, 1 December 1916, Page 10

HEAVY DAMAGES AWARDED

v —+- — ' LABOURER'S CLAIM AGAINST SUGAR COMPANY. By Telegraph—Press Association. Auckland, November 30. A civil action, arising out of an accident at the Colonial Sugar Refining Company's refinery, at Chelsea, was heard at the Supreme Court to-day. The plaintiff, a labourer named Harry Boartlman, claimed from the Sugar Company, • his employers, £1500 general, and .'£2s special damages, for injuries received on June 25, 1915, from burns inflicted by sulphuric acid which dripped through the floor on to his head. Counsel for the plaintiff said the action was not brought under the Workers' Compensation Act, but at common law, and the claim was not for compensation, but for damages for injuries. It was not necessary in any claim.under tho "Workers' Compensation Act to prove negligence on the part of the employer or his servants, bub in tho present case plaintiff had undertaken to prove negligence, and claimed a sum considered sufficient to recompense him for his injuries, quite apart from the limit of £500 set down by the. Act. The defence raised a nonsuit point that having accepted payments from the company's employees' benefit scheme, plaintiff had lost bis right to claim under common law. The,jury returned a verdict for tho full amount claimed, £1525, less £145 received by payments fro.m the benefit fund, and further payments by defendants. ' ' -