The plaintiff suffered injury at work and claimed damages. He had received a lump sum under insurance provided by the defendant’s parent company for the benefit of employees injured at work. Did the lump sum payment fall to be deducted from the damages?
Held: The payment did not come within the insurance exception, since the plaintiff had not paid or contributed towards the payment of the premiums. ‘the payment to the plaintiff was a payment by way of benevolence, even though the mechanics required the use of an insurance policy. The payment was not an ex gratia act where the accident had already happened, but the whole idea of the policy, covering all the many employees of British Shipbuilders and its subsidiary companies, was clearly to make the benefit payable as an act of benevolence whenever a qualifying injury took place. It was a lump sum payable regardless of fault or whether the employers or anyone else were liable, and it was not a method of advancing sick pay covered by a contractual scheme ‘
Citations:
[1990] 1 WLR 963
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Citing:
Cited – Hussain v New Taplow Paper Mills Ltd HL 1988
The plaintiff was injured in an accident at work. His employer was partly responsible. For 13 weeks he received full sick pay in accordance with his contract. He then received half his pre-accident earnings under the permanent health insurance . .
Cited by:
Not good law – Pirelli General Plc and others v Gaca CA 26-Mar-2004
The claimant was awarded damages from his employers, who claimed that the benefits received by the claimant from an insurance policy to which the defendants had contributed should be set off against the claim.
Held: McCamley was no longer good . .
Doubted – Royston Frederick Williams v BOC Gases Ltd CA 29-Mar-2000
The plaintiff claimed damages from his employer in respect of injuries suffered during the course of his employment. The defendant paid the claimant a sum to which he had no contractual entitlement, saying that it was to be treated as an advance . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Damages
Updated: 05 August 2022; Ref: scu.195722
