The National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 / with general introduction and annotations by N.P. Shannon and Douglas Potter.

  • United Kingdom
Date:
1946
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act, 1946 / with general introduction and annotations by N.P. Shannon and Douglas Potter. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    orders given by or on behalf of his employer, or that he is acting without instructions from his employer if (a) the accident would have been deemed so to have arisen had the act not been done in contravention as aforesaid, or without instructions ; and (}) the act was done for the purposes of and in connection with the employer’ s trade or business (as to which latter words see the cases collected in Willis, 94-97). The result of the above is that if the insured person shows that the accident arose in the course of the employment, it is not shown that it did not arise out of the employment merely because there was disobedience to regulations, and serious and wilful misconduct does not now disentitle a person from benefits. 3. Travelling accidents.—Under the Workmen's Compensation Acts it was held—and in general these cases, as to which see Willis, 21-44, will - apply to the present Act—that a “‘ workman is acting in the course of his employment when he is engaged in doing something he was employed to do . . . when he is doing something in discharge of a duty to his employer, directly or indirectly imposed upon him byhis contract of service”’ (St. Helen’s Colliery Co. v. Hewitson, [1924] A.C. 59 at p. T1 per Lord ATKINSON ; 34 Digest 280, 2364). ‘“‘ The man is not. in the course of his employment unless the facts are such that it is in the course of his employment, and in performance of his contract of service, that he is found in the place where the accident occurs. If there is only a right, and there is no obligation binding on the man in the matter of his employment, there is no liability ”’ (bid., at p. 95 per Lord WrENBuURY). To put shortly the simple and ordinary cases that arise, if an errand boy on an errand for his master is run over in the street that was (and will be under the present Act) an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, because he is in the place where he is pursuant to a duty owed to his master. If, on the other hand, such a boy is injured in the street in the morning while riding or walking to his work, and before his day’s employment has commenced, that accident is not one in the course of the employment : it is the result of a normal risk of the streets and has no causal connection with the employment, for so far as the employer is concerned the boy could just as legitimately have been anywhere else, and have been doing anything else, at the time. This class of case also will remain unaffected by the new Act. There is, however, a third class of case in which a change has been made, and these were cases of real hardship under the Workmen’s Compensa- tion Acts, in which the rigid logic of the law on this point did not accord with the practical necessities of many situations. This class of case con- cerning the provision of transport by the employers or by other persons by arrangements made and controlled by the employers, and one of the leading cases on the whole subject, St. Helen's Colltery Co. v. Hewrtson, [1924] A.C. 59; 384 Digest 280, 2364, presents a typical set of facts. A workman was injured in a railway accident while travelling in a special colliers’ train from the colliery where he was employed to his home. The colliery company had an agreement with the railway company that the latter should run special trains between certain points for the carriage of colliers only to and from their work. The colliery company paid the railway company, and agreed to indemnify the railway company against claims by the workmen in respect of accident, injury or loss while using the trains. Any colliery workman could travel by these trains provided he signed an agreement with the railway company exempting them from liability, and the colliery com- pany then, in return for a payment deducted each week from the workman’s wages, issued him a travelling pass. The ground on which the workman - was held not to be entitled to compensation was that there was no obligation to use these trains: he would have fulfilled his contract of employment by getting to the pit at the stipulated time in any way—walking, cycling, motor car or aeroplane. Similarly, when he left the pit he could go home as he wished—or not go at all—provided he got outside the colliery premises,