RESPONSIBILITIES OF EMPLOYERS.

Manawatu Standard, Volume XL, Issue 7920, 28 September 1904, Page 4

RESPONSIBILITIES OF EMPLOYERS.

The. responsibilities incurred by employers of labour "under the Workers' Compensation for Accidents Act were illustrated in a striking manner by.a recent decision of the Arbitration Court at Dunedin. The claimant in the case was a widow whose husband was at the

time of his death - employed by the respondent as .ploughman. The deceased accidentally.-. struck- one' of his fingers with a' hammer while'he was effecting some repairs to a plough. The injury thus sustained' was, only a. trifling one - simply an abrasion—but tertdays after.wards the man wiFisidead.asithe result of the introduction of erysipelas; into his system." As to1 the cause of the super-: 'vention of the disease, the eA'idence was sufficiently } clear. The deceased's wife was suffering from puerperal fever; Her

nnrse was attacked by erysipelas, and deceased himself-assisted to remove the Jiurse (who afterwards died). The Court found that the contagion of the disease 'was extended from the nurse to the deceased, yet held that the case was one that was covered by the ■ Act, which makes the employer liable in the event of a'servant sustaining " personal injury by accident;" For though the introduction of erysipelas was an unexpected result of the wound, the Court decided that in all human probability death was attributable to the wound. The case is distinctly a hard one for the deceased's employer, who is required to. provide £244 -by way of compensation to the widow, and her infant.