NO COMPENSATION

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 921, 14 March 1930, Page 10

NO COMPENSATION

INJURED WORKER’S CLAIM FAILS ACCIDENT AT HUIA No compensation has been allowed by the Arbitration Court to Charles •Tames Flowerday, a platelayer, employed at Huia dam construction works, who was injured on August 5 last, when the jigger on which he and other workmen were travelling to their jobs, was derailed. The claimant was employed by the Auckland City Council, which was defendant in the action. The court held the claim could not succeed because there was no term of his employment requiring him to use the jigger to get to his work. This assumed the area contiguous to the section of tramline, on which the claimant was employed to be within the scope of his duties. Alternatively, accepting the whole of the waterworks reserve to be the ambit of claimant’s duties, the court decided that, although the use of tiie jigger was tacitly permitted, claimant was not, at the time of the accident, on a part of the reserve where his duties required him to be. Reviewing the facts, the court said the City Council’s officers' had tacitly acquiesced in the men, who lived beyond the reserve, using the jigger to travel to their work. The accident occurred about 7 a.m. when the jigger was taking the workmen to the construction camp, claimant, who was accompanying them, being returning from a week-end at Huia Bav. The vehicle struck a boulder on the line and claimant was thrown off and seriously injured.

The court pointed out that when a worker was required by his contract of service to use a particular means of transport to reach or leave his employer's premises he was safeguarded by the Act This, however, was not the case where the worker was not obliged to use the means provided. The man was injured at a spot two and a-half miles from the point at which lie would normally have reported for work at 7 a.m. It seemed unreasonable to regard the whole of the waterworks’ reserve as a single farm, dock or colliery. Further, the presence of claim-

ant’s temporary home close to the section of line, on which he was exclusively engaged, did not strengthen the claim, as his employment ceased from the time he left the neighbourhood of that section.

Judgment was entered for the Auckland City Council, with leave to apply tor costs.

Mr. Tuck appeared for the claimant and Mr. Johnstone for the defendant.