High Court of Australia
Mh. 26 phise IR
IN THE HIGH COURT OF AUSTRALIA
i | | j !
THECOMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALTA
REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
Judgment delivered ot MELBOURN# on MONDAY, 19th OCTOBER 1959,
WM, Hoan, Gore Prat, ba, q
*y
/&
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
ORDER
Appeal allowed withsewsts. Order of the County Court, Melbourne, set aside. In lieu thereof order that the appeal to that Court be dismissed.
No order as to costs. .
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA
Supa? DIXON C.J.
THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA Ve
MACKEY
This appeal from the County Court at Melbourne exercising federal jurisdiction concerns a claim under the Commonwealth Enployees' Compensation Act 1930-1956. It was a claim in respect of a death which was found to have been the result of a ventricular fibrillation precipitated by a coronary occlusion. The question whether the deceased was acting in the course of his employment at the time the fibrillation commenced to develop depended on very special facts which were fully dealt with by his Honour Judge Nelson in a very careful judgment. But when he delivered his judgment the decision of this Court in The Commonwealth v. Ockenden 1958 Argus L.R. 772 had not been given. That decision appears to be incompatible with the success of the claim.
At the hearing of the appeal in this case by the Commonwealth the respondent whose claim had succeeded in the County Court did not appear. The Court after hearing the appellant's argument so far as it depended upon the application of the decision in Ockenden's case stopped the appellant's counsel, but in view of the fact that cases were under consideration in appeals concerning awards made in other jurisdictions in respect of heart disease the Court did not aimmediately pronounce judgment in this case. Those cases have now received our consideration and, as far as I am concerned, I have found no reason for thinking that we were wrong in the view we were disposed to take that the order of the County Court cannot stand in face of the decision in Ockenden's case.
We try to embed the page this law was scraped from. If the site blocks framing, you still get the link and a local excerpt.
Last checked with source on —
Checking whether the official page can be embedded…
Plain-English simplify of this law: a short summary, key points, and both sides of the argument. Generated on first view via Replicate, then cached. Vote on what helps your study.
No study brief is cached for this law yet. Sign up to generate a plain-English brief.
Sign up to generate