11

H.—ll

(2.) In Egan and Another v. Egan (Vol. xiii, p. 11), tho plaintiffs claimed compensation as partial dependants of a deceased worker who was killed in an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment. It appeared from the evidence that the plaintiffs had been partially dependent, but had under the will of the deceased received £300 each. The question was as to whether these amounts should be taken into consideration in assessing compensation. The Court held that under section 3 of the Amendment Act of 191.1. the Court was now required to fix such sum as was " reasonable, and proportionate to the injury to those dependants," and as the dependants had sustained no pecuniary loss through the death of the deceased no compensation could be awarded. (It might be mentioned that, under the former provision— viz., section 4 (b) of the principal Act of 1908, compensation would, irrespective of the amount left under the will of the deceased, have been payable, based upon " the value of the benefits received by these dependants from the deceased worker during the twelve months immediately preceding the accident." The present provision of the Aot under which the above decision was given is substantially the same as in the original Act of 1900. Section 3of the Amendment Act of 1911 was the outcome of a decision, under the 1908 Act, in which it had been found that a claimant widow, although she had been entitled to the benefit of a maintenance order against her husband, had not actually received any payments from him under the order during the twelve months preceding his death, and " the value of the benefits received " by her had therefore been nil, and no compensation could be awarded to her. The intention of section 3 of the 1911 amendment was to remedy this injustice to widows.) (3.) In Cave v. The Opunake Wharf Company (Vol. xiii, p. 25). This decision discloses an anomaly caused by section sof the Amendment Act of 1911. The plaintiff claimed compensation at the rate of half-wages for a period of forty-eight weeks of total incapacity, and also compensation for the full period of five years thereafter, on the basis of partial incapacity. (Presumably the remaining four weeks of the six years was not in dispute.) He was awarded a lump sum as compensation covering the period of his total incapacity and the presumed period of partial incapacity. The anomaly created was that the section referred to placed a limitation of £2 10s. a week upon the amount of compensation payable during a period of total incapacity, while no such, limitation was provided for during a period of partial incapacity. It was possible, therefore, that in some circumstances a larger amount of compensation might be payable during a period of partial incapacity than during a similar period of total incapacity. (4.) In Hodge, v. The Alton Co-operative Dairy Company (Vol. xiii, p. 47), a worker had suffered an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, whereby he lost the lower part of his light arm. The worker, while in the hospital to which he had been removed for treatment, contracted typhoid fever, from which he died. The defendant company had not disputed its liability to pay compensation in respect of the injury sustained, and had made payments in respect of total incapacity up to the time of the injured man's death. After the death of the worker, action was brought by the administrator of the deceased's estate to recover, on behalf of the estate, a lump sum in respect of the deceased's injury, in accordance with tho provisions of the Second Schedule to the Act. The plaintiff relied upon the contention that there was in the deceased a vested right to recover 'a definite sum, and that such right was enforceable by his administrator. The Court held, however, in accordance with the decision in Rough v. Prouse Lumber (Limited) (Vol. ix, p. 2), that the right of the deceased was to a recurring weekly payment, that the Second Schedule to the Act does not give to an injured worker an immediate vested right to a lump sum, and that the plaintiff was not therefore entitled to recover in his action. (5.) In Nicolson v. The Union Steamship Company (Vol. xiii, p. 34), compensation was claimed in respect of the death of a worker who, it was alleged, had died from the effects of sunstroke. The Court found, on the medical evidence, that a sunstroke had been received by the deceased while working on board a ship in a confined space exposed to the sun on an excessively hot day. It was held that this was an accident within the meaning of the Act, and one arising out of and in the course of the deceased's employment, as he was exposed to a risk of sunstroke not shared generally by the other persons working in the open air on that day. SCAFFOLDING INSPECTION ACT. During the period 1,453 notices of intention to erect scaffolding were received. The Inspectors of Scaffolding in the various centres inspected all the structures from time to time, and extracts from their reports appear on pages 22-23 of this report. Inspectors generally express