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Southland Times
January 12, 2002
Woman wins her fight for $100,000
by Carmen Wilson
A Southland woman has won a two-year
battle to retain more than $100,000 in ACC compensation she was paid after
her partner was killed in a car crash.
Karen Murdoch, then Karen Pope, was in a de facto relationship with Sean
Tunstall-Ashley, of Invercargill, when he was killed in a smash near
Waikouaiti in 1993.
In March 1994, ACC granted Mrs Murdoch surviving spouse
compensation of $102,597.10 over five years in payments of $463.20 a week.
However, in May 1997, ACC started investigating the entitlement after Mr
Tunstall-Ashley's mother alleged he was intending to marry another woman
before he died.
Shirley Tunstall-Ashley told ACC her son Sean was not in a de facto
relationship with Mrs Murdoch at the time of his death but was about to
announce his engagement to Louella Fountain.
After an investigation, an ACC fraud liaison officer wrote to Mrs Murdoch in
November 1999 cancelling her entitlement and seeking repayment of the money
already paid.
It also considered charging her with criminal fraud.
Mrs Murdoch sought a review of the decision. The review was upheld by ACC so
she appealed to the district court.
In a written decision released last month, Wellington District Court Judge
Anthony Willy upheld Mrs Murdoch's appeal, saying the accusations against her
were "scurrilous and without foundation." Some of the evidence that
was used to overturn Mrs Murdoch's entitlement was "such blatant hearsay
that it ought not to have been admitted as in having any probative
value." Judge Willy said he also did not think it was a coincidence that
about the same time Mrs Tunstall-Ashley made the allegations she had taken
action to gain a larger share of her deceased son's estate.
Mrs Murdoch was the principal, but not sole, beneficiary of Mr
Tunstall-Ashley's will.
"The appellant (Mrs Murdoch) emerges from this whole sorry saga with a
good deal of dignity and her reputation for honesty intact," Judge Willy
said.
However, his judgment notes the ACC reviewer was faced with a difficult task.
"The reviewer was presented with a difficult and in many respects
puzzling conflict of evidence, touching matters going to the character and
honesty of the appellant, the deceased and a number of deponents," Judge
Willy said.
Mrs Murdoch, who now lives in Te Anau, said yesterday it had been a trying
time.
"I hope now that the past can rest in peace and I can be allowed to move
on with the future," she said.
Mrs Tunstall-Ashley was not aware of the judgment until contacted by The
Southland Times yesterday and was shocked to learn the appeal had been
upheld.
"You're bloody joking," she said.
Financial gain from her
son's will was not her motivation for questioning Mrs Murdoch's entitlement.
"That was not what I went out for. It was just that Sean was being
rubbished." Judge Willy said Mrs Murdoch was entitled to costs.
"My tentative view is that this is a case for full solicitor client
costs against the corporation."
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