Barnes v Nunnery Colliery Co Ltd: HL 11 Dec 1911

The dependant of a deceased workman claimed compensation from his employers. The circumstances of the workman’s death are narrated in the judgment of Lord Mersey as follows-‘William Francis Barnes, a boy of seventeen, was employed at the Nunnery Colliery as a ‘clamper.’ In the early morning of the 2nd May last he and three other boys, Greaves, Bell, and Thackeray, were starting for the end of a level, known as 5 South Level, where they were to work. This place, which was some distance from the spot where they were gathered together, ought in the proper course of work to have been approached on foot. But there existed near to the footway an endless rope carrying tubs to the lower part of the mine. This rope was about to start. It had thirty-eight empty tubs attached to it, and was in charge of Greaves, who sat in the front tub. At the moment of starting, the other three, of whom Barnes was one, got into the tub in which Greaves was seated in order that they might ride to their work instead of walking. The train was then started by Greaves. After it had travelled about half a mile Barnes’s head came in contact with the roof of the mine, with the result that he was killed. The others, who had probably travelled in this way before, avoided the danger by stooping in
the tub. It appeared that Barnes had not previously ridden in the tub, and that he had only been in the employment of the colliery company about three weeks. The evidence shows that it was quite a common practice for boys to ride in the tubs in order to get to their work, but it also appears that the use of the tubs for this purpose was forbidden, and that notices to this effect were placed at the pit bottom and in the lamp room. There is also a special rule of the colliery-rule 90-forbidding workmen to use the tubs. All the boys, including the deceased, knew that they ought not to ride in the tubs, and boys in fact never did ride in them if any deputy or official of the colliery could see them. They then walked.’
The County Court Judge held that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment, and awarded compensation. This judgment was reversed by the Court of Appeal ( Cozens-Hardy, M.R., and Farwell, L. J., diss. Fletcher Moulton, L.J.). The dependant appealed.
Held: Where an act committed imprudently or disobediently by a workman is different in kind from anything which he is required or expected to do, and is also put outside the range of his service by a genuine prohibition, an accident which he thereby suffers does not arise out of his employment.

Judges:

Lord Chancellor (Loreburn), Lords Atkinson, Shaw, and Mersey

Citations:

[1911] UKHL 688

Links:

Bailii

Statutes:

Workmen’s Compensation Act 1906

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Personal Injury

Updated: 23 May 2022; Ref: scu.619219