ARBITRATION COURT.

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume L, Issue 12145, 8 December 1908, Page 5

ARBITRATION COURT.

COMPENSATION TO WORKERS ACT. ■~.., ;■■ •■

(Per Press Association.)

AUCKLAND, December 7. The Arbitration Ootiirt has given its decision in the compensation case brought ,b.y , JTohn ■ Puhi Matthews against GJfesori'antl Fyfild. The respondents havo"«?a ssrtvm'll near TauinaruTtui; Oii the : 2£nd Juno last, Harry Puhi MattheAvsfi^'^OTi of tha claimant,- while working 'jt'i the mill, was accidentally Killed. The- claimant alleges that ho and tho other member of hfs family wero partially dependent on the earningof the deceased and claims £200 as compensation. Respondents dispute their liability to pay compensation on the grounds that the claimant was not thi> father of the deceased within the meaning of tho Workers Compensation for Accidents Act. The claimant is a Maori. jM or about the year/1889 he took as a wife one Ore wa^ who ;is a Maori and a member of the Ngatihuri tribe The union was arranged in accordance with. Maori customj but tnero was nothing in the nature, of a marriage ceremony. Claimant and Orewa have lived together sine©-as- husba)id and wife and have had issue of,-uino: children.'-'The deceased, Harry, Puhi Matthews, was the eldest of these, chit<lren, and was born on the 4th of November, 1890:. Iv November, 1896, a rpremony of marriage between claimnnb a*nd Orewa was performed without any license under the Marriage Acts tjy'.tho Rev Taimona Hapimaua, a duly «»idained clergyman-of the Church of England. The application for .arbitration was filed in the present case on the S9fch of September last. On the 23rd of October, the cas<s was partly heard nnd then adjourned, on the 27th of October, and before the heariug was resumed the claimant * registered the nirth of his deceased son. Harry Puhi Matthews, under the provisions of the Legitimation Act, 1893, and on the eamn day registeivd the births of three of the other children who had been born to him and Orewa. The question that arrso on these fact* was whether tho claimint was the father of tHe deceased Harry Puhj Matthews for the purposes,,of tho Workers Compensation for Accidents Act, the Court held that In was, and ordered the payment to him of £130 compensation.