Wattle Gully Mines v Clementi [1956] HCA 16

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan, Williams, Kitto and Taylor JJ. Wattle Gully Mines v Clementi [1956] HCA 16

ORDER Wattle Gully Mines v. Clementi. Appeal dismissed with costs. Minerals (Victoria) Pty. Ltd. v. Stuart. Appeal dismissed with costs. Dean and Runge v. Thomson. Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The Court delivered the following written judgment:—

April 13 Dixon C.J., McTiernan, Williams, Kitto and Taylor JJ.

These appeals are from orders of the Supreme Court of Victoria (Full Court), and are brought by special leave. The order which is attacked in each case gives answers to certain questions which had been submitted to the Supreme Court by means of a case stated by the Workers' Compensation Board upon the hearing of an application by a worker against his employer for a determination of a claim for compensation under the provisions of the Workers' Compensation Acts 1951-1953 Vict..

In each instance the case stated contains certain findings of the board. It is found that at all material times the party who is the respondent here was employed by the party who is now the appellant, that the employee was a "worker" within the meaning of the Workers' Compensation Acts, and that he was totally incapacitated for work (in the first two cases) by a disease due to the nature of the employment, namely silicosis and (in the third case) by personal injury arising out of or in the course of the employment. There was also in each case a finding that the worker was disabled by his incapacity from earning full wages at the work at which he was employed, and that the employer had admitted liability for compensation and had made certain weekly payments to the worker without any award of the board having been made. In each case, however, the weekly payments had ceased, and the employer had denied liability to make any further payments, contending that the payments already made had not only reached but exceeded the amount fixed by the applicable statutory provisions as the maximum amount of his liability. The worker had then sought from the board a decision that he was entitled to further payments. In the disputes thus raised there was no controversy as to the total of the amounts which had been paid to the respective workers; the only question was whether, on the true construction of the Acts, the amount of the employer's maximum liability was below or above the aggregate of the amounts paid.