COURT OF APPEAL

Evening Star, Issue 21749, 18 June 1934, Page 12

COURT OF APPEAL

JUDGMENTS DELIVERED [Per United Press Association,] - ' l ' WELLINGTON, June 18., The Court of Appeal has delivered judgment in the following cases : , In the case of the Amalgamated, Society of Railway Servants v. the At-torney-General the court held that the word “ rent ” in the National Expenditure Adjustment Act must be construed.-' as . having its popular rather than its technical meaning. The Chief Justice held that part; 111 of the Act relating to the reduction of rent applied to the rental chafed railway’ employees occupying railway homes. The appeal was accordingly allowed; 1 * Finlayson v. Minister of the Public Works.—This case involved the question of whether, betterment could be deducted from a claim for compensation under the Public Works Act. The court held that in view of the indefinite abandonment of the construction of the railway track at ■ Dargaville no claim for betterment was justified, and jud"« ment was given in favour of the claimant, Mrs Finlayson. In the case Blenkiron v. the West-port-Stockton Coal Company, which had been remitted from the Arbitration Court for-the purpose of obtaining authoritative decision as to the meaning of “ average ’ weekly earnings,” in section 6 of, the_ Workers’* Compensation Act, the Chief Justice and Judges Herdman, Blair,_ and Kennedy delivered separate judgments.Each arrived at substantially the same conclusion—napiely, that for the purposes of assessing: compensation the average weekly earnings were to he ascertained by dividing- the amount earned during a relevant period' by the number of : days in a’ : normal working week. The Chief Justice stressed the viewtKat section 6 was peculiar to the New Zealand Act, and- hence that decisions on the point* in issue in England were irrelevant. * The defendant company admitted liability for £660, but as a result of the decision of the court it has now been held liable .for - the maximum compensation of £I,OOO, costs to be determined by the Court' of Arbitration. ■