LODGE DOCTORS AND PATIENTS.

Motueka Star, Volume II, Issue 63, 21 March 1902, Page 4

LODGE DOCTORS AND PATIENTS.

An appeal involving the relationship in which two doctors retainer, by a friendly society stand to the bulk of the members was heard in Banco at Wellington lately by his Honor the Chief Justice. The appeal was brought by William Osborne, labourer, of Longburn. against a judgment of the Sti-

pendary Magistrate of Palmerston " North for payment of .£29 18s 6d by Osborne to George Wilson, a doctor of medicine. The .appellant is a member of Court Manawatu, No. 566 A.0.F., Wellington district. The members of this lodge are divided into two sections one being under the charge of Dr McIntyre and the other under Dr Wilson. Each doctor was under agreement to medically attend to the families of his patients. A child of Osborne’s became ill with diphtheria. Owing to Dr McIntyre (to,whose section of patients Osborne belonged) having broken his leg, Dr Wilson was called on to attend to the child. The defence set up by Osborne when sued for medical attendance on the child was that Dr Wilson was, by his office a lodge .doctor, compelled by the laws of" the lodge to minister to the child of appellant for the remuneration received by the said doctor from the lodge. My, Bell, who appeared for the appellant, said that Dr Wilson attended to the child by request of Dr Mclntyre, not at that of appellant. After Dr Wilson had seen the child he ordered it to be removed to the Palmerston Hospital. The doctor’s claim for special payment from the date on which the child entered the hospital was entirely against the rules of the lodge he served. There was (counsel further argued) a tribunal of the lodge to which the doctor should have submitted his claim. Mr Skerrett, who appeared for Dr Wilson, argued that the chief question for Ins Honor to consider was whether or not there was evidence sufficient to establish a contract by Osborne to pay Dr Wilson for his services. Dr Wilson was really not entitled to claim from the lodge payment for attendance on any of Dr Mclntyre’s patients. The rules of the lodge to which Mr Bell had made reference were only applicable to lodges having but one doctor ; they were plainly drawn up with that end in view. As to Mr Bell’s contention that there was a tribunal of the lodge to deal with such matters as the present dispute, Mr Skerrett submitted that the lodge rules, did not provide for the determination of such disputes. The onus to prove otherwise rested upon his learned friend. Dr Wilson did not render his services as surgeon of the society ; he rendered them in his capacity as a private doctor. Mr Bell then submitted that the purview of the Act was such that it covered the agreement that the doctor had entered into with the lodge to attend its patients ; therefore, the appellant could plead that as a bar to a claim by the doctor for the Act impliedly prevented a lodge doctor from making an agreement with a lodge member . His Honor directed the -Registrar of the Court to write to.the Magistrate who tried the case, asking for a full note of the evidence upon-which the decision was arrived at. The appeal meanwhiD stands adjourned.