NANA YAW OSEI v. GHANAIAN AUSTRALIAN GOLDFIELD LTD.

MRS. WOOD, J.S.C.:

The appellant, who was employed by the respondent company as a mine operator, was subsequently diagnosed with a cardiac disease and therefore retired on medical grounds.

Contending that his illness was occupational, in that it developed by reason of his work schedule as a heavy machine operator, he sued to recover what he thought he was entitled to under the section (c) of Article 11.09 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA), together with interest thereon.

Both the trial High Court and the Appeal Court, to which the respondents who, was clearly dissatisfied with the original decision turned to for redress, rightly in my view, identified only one key issue for determination. It was this: Whether or not the appellants medical condition was work related, or to put it in the language of the CBA, an occupational ill-health.

The trial court gave an affirmative answer to this question and consequently awarded him ¢12 million as damages. The Court of Appeal upon a very critical examination of the available evidence, particularly exhibit C and E, concluded otherwise, reversed this critical finding and set aside the decision and the award made thereunder.

Obviously dissatisfied with this reversal, the appellant has understandably appealed to us on a sole ground, in spite of the clear advance notice that further grounds would be filed on receipt of the record of proceedings. The ground reads as follows:-

“The Court of Appeal erred in the interpretation of Exhibits “C” and “E” in holding that the appellants condition was not occupational”.

It follows that this appeal turns on the same narrow, primary and fundamental issue of whether or not his ill-health was occupational. The importance of this question is not difficult to fathom. An affirmative answer would, under the contract of employment, entitle him to 20 months of his basic salary, rather than the relatively paltry sum of 4 months salary which was offered him, by the respondents as his true and just terminal benefit.

Two simple arguments were advanced in support of this sole ground of appeal. At the trial, the court had found that a pre employment medical examination of the appellant, had disclosed no tell tale signs of any such malady and had therefore inferred from the Exhibit E, the medical report, that his subsequent ill health was occupational, which finding which the appellate court reversed. It was therefore submitted in this court, that the proper inference to be drawn f