Williams v Metropolitan Coal Co Ltd [1948] HCA 8

High Court of Australia Latham C.J. Starke, Dixon and McTiernan JJ. Williams v Metropolitan Coal Co Ltd [1948] HCA 8

ORDER Questions answered No. Appeal allowed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

Aug. 12 Latham C.J.

This is an appeal from a decision of the Full Court of the Supreme Court of New South Wales [5] upon a case stated by his Honour Judge Perdriau, Chairman of the Workers' Compensation Commission, under the Workers' Compensation Act 1926-1946, s. 37 (4) [6] .

1. (1947) 48 S.R. (N.S.W.) 66; 65 W.N. 36; 21 W.C.R. 146. 2. (1947) 21 W.C.R. 141.

The appellant Morris Williams was employed as a miner by the respondent company, the Metropolitan Coal Co. Ltd., for a number of years prior to February 1942. On 18th February 1942 the appellant ceased work as a coal miner because he had reached the age of sixty years. Under s. 5 of the Coal and Oil Shale Mine Workers (Pensions) Act 1941 N.S.W. he could no longer be employed as a mine worker. Under that Act he became entitled to a pension of £2 a week and his wife to a pension of £1 5s. a week—£3 5s. a week in all. In the succeeding years the appellant did not work, and accordingly earned no wages. On 19th November 1946 he was examined by a medical board and the certificate of the board stated that he suffered from a "partially incapacitating (75%) pneumoconiosis due to work in coal mines," and it was certified that he was fit for light sedentary work. Pneumoconiosis is a disease of such a nature as to be contracted by a gradual process. Where the injury resulting in incapacity (Workers' Compensation Act, s. 9) is such a disease, compensation is payable "by the employer in whose employment the worker is or who last employed the worker" (s. 7 (4)).

The last mining wage which the applicant had earned was £8 10s. a week in 1942. He was physically capable of acting as a time-keeper on a mine, and the respondent company was prepared to employ him in that capacity at a wage of £7 11s. a week—but such employment was prevented by the Coal and Oil Shale Mine Workers (Pensions) Act. He would have been able to earn at light (non-mining) work an average of £3 15s. a week.