Commonwealth v Thompson [1960] HCA 28

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. Fullagar, Taylor, Menzies and Windeyer JJ. Commonwealth v Thompson [1960] HCA 28

ORDER Appeal allowed with costs. Order of the District Court at Sydney discharged. In lieu thereof order that the appeal to the District Court be dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1960, May 19 Dixon C.J.

This appeal comes from the District Court exercising federal jurisdiction under s. 20 of the Commonwealth Employees' Compensation Act 1930-1956. On reconsideration of s. 142 of the District Courts Act 1912-1955 (N.S.W.) and the wide definition of action in s. 3 I think that, notwithstanding the doubt I expressed on the point in The Commonwealth v. Wright [3] , the appeal given is wide enough to embrace a proceeding under s. 20 of the Commonwealth Employees' Compensation Act 1930-1956 for the purposes of s. 39 (2) (b) of the Judiciary Act 1903-1955, if s. 39 (2) applies, as it was said to do by the Court in Goward v. The Commonwealth [4] . But whether the appeal comes by that course of procedure or directly under s. 73 (ii) of the Constitution and O. 70 of the Rules of the High Court, the appeal is a full appeal upon fact and law: see The Commonwealth v. Matheson [5] , per Williams J. [6] and Wishart v. Fraser [7] .

1. (1956) 96 C.L.R. 536, at p. 541. 2. (1957) 97 C.L.R. 355, at pp. 360, 361. 3. (1955) 93 C.L.R. 403. 4. (1955) 93 C.L.R., at p. 408. 5. (1941) 64 C.L.R. 470, at p. 480.

The respondent is the widow of F. A. S. Thompson who at the time of his death was Deputy Commissioner of Taxation responsible for the administration in New South Wales of the Income Tax and Social Services Contribution Assessment Act of the Commonwealth. He died on 9th July 1958 from what appears to have been a coronary occlusion. As head of the department in Sydney he attended on that day a gathering of the staff to bid farewell to a senior officer on the occasion of that officer's leaving the service, and as he was ending a speech he made he collapsed and died. The medical report made after a post-mortem examination said no more than that the cause of death was disease of the heart, coronary. He had experienced the symptoms of angina pectoris for some time and his condition had been diagnosed early in 1957 as that of coronary sclerosis.