swarb.co.uk - law index
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Personal Injury - From: 1900 To: 1929
This page lists 13 cases, and was prepared on 02 April 2018.
Oliver v Nautilus Steam Shipping Co Ltd [1903] 2 KB 639
1903
Litigation Practice, Employment, Personal Injury
Where an employee was injured at work, but by an outside person, section 6 of the 1897 Act provides that the worker could "at his option, proceed, either at law against that person to recover damages, or against his employer for compensation under this Act, but not against both". If compensation under the Act was paid, the "employer [was] entitled to be indemnified" by that other person.
Receipts given "without prejudice" were accepted by the employers. Held: The workman had not exercised the option under the Act.
Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 6
1 Citers
Fenton v J Thorley and Co Ltd; HL 1903 - [1903] AC 443
Ellis v Joseph Ellis and Co [1905] 1 KB 324
1905
CA
Lord Collins MR, Cozens-Hardy, Mathew LJJ
Employment, Company, Personal Injury
A member of a partnership formed to work a mine worked in it as foreman. He took weekly wages from the profits. He suffered a fatal accident in the mine and his widow sought compensation under the 1897 Act from the surviving partners. To qualify he had to have been a workman, which was defined broadly in the Act and extended beyond employees strictly defined: "'Workman' includes every person who is engaged in an employment to which this Act applies, whether by way of manual labor or otherwise, and whether his agreement is one of service or apprenticeship or otherwise and is expressed or implied, is oral or in writing". The Court was asked whether, given his position as a partner, he came within the definition. Could he be regarded as a workman in the employ of the partnership with the other partners being his employer? Held: The action failed.
Lord Collins MR thought that he could not: "The supposition that the deceased man was 'employed', within the meaning of that term as used in the Act, would appear to involve that he, as one of the partners, must be looked upon as occupying the position of being one of his own employers. It seems to me that, when one comes to analyse an arrangement of this kind, namely, one by which a partner himself works, and receives sums which are called wages, it really does not create the relation of employers and employed, but is, in truth, a mode of adjusting the amount that must be taken to have been contributed to the partnership assets by a partner who has made what is really a contribution in kind, and does not affect his relation to the other partners, which is that of co-adventurer and not employee. Such a partner cannot put himself in the position of not being a partner when he is one, or of being a workman employed, when that position would involve that he would be both employer and employee. The definition of a 'workman' given in the Act might cover a person in such a position, apart from the difficulty that arises from the consideration that he would be his own employer; but that is not conclusive, because the applicability of the Act appears to depend not merely on the question whether the injured man was a workman within the definition given by the Act, but also on the existence of the relation of employer and workman. Sect.1 sub-s.1 provides that, "if in any employment to which this Act applies personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a workman, his employer shall, subject as hereinafter mentioned, be liable to pay compensation in accordance with the first schedule to this Act." That section appears to me clearly to contemplate a relation between two opposite parties, of whom one is employer and the other employee. It seems to me obvious, when the true position of the deceased is analysed, that he was not such a workman as is contemplated by the Act, and that a person cannot for the purposes of the Act occupy the position of being both employer and employee".
Mathew LJ stated that it was legally impossible for the same person to occupy the position of being both master and servant, employer and employed.
Cozens-Hardy LJ held that "the Act only applies where there is on one side an employer, and on the other side a workman, who are different persons."
Workmen's Compensation Act 1897
1 Citers
Williams v Mersey Docks [1905] 1 KB 804
1905
Personal Injury
Where a personal injury claim becomes time-barred before the death of the injured party, his or her dependants will have no claim.
1 Citers
Cavalier v Pope; HL 22-Jun-1906 - [1906] AC 428; [1906] UKHL 1
Padbury v Holliday and Greenwood Ltd; 1912 - [1912] 28 TLR 492
The Montreal Street Railway Company and Another v Roch Normandin [1917] UKPC 2
23 Jan 1917
PC
Commonwealth, Personal Injury
(Quebec)
1 Citers
[ Bailii ]
Hood v Anchor Line (Henderson Bros) Ltd [1918] UKHL 2; [1918] AC 837; (1918) 2 SLT 118; 1918 SC (HL) 143
1 Jul 1918
HL
Scotland, Negligence, Personal Injury
[ Bailii ]
Armstrong, Whitworth and Co Ltd v Redford [1920] AC 757
1920
HL
Lord Wrenbury
Personal Injury
Lord Wrenbury said: "I have long since abandoned the hope of deciding any case upon the words 'out of and in the course of' upon grounds satisfactory to myself or convincing to others".
Workmen's Compensation Act 1906
1 Citers
Mercer v South Eastern and Chatham Railway Companies' Managing Committee [1922] 2 KB 549
1922
KBD
Negligence, Personal Injury
A claimant was knocked down by a train when he went through an unlocked gate onto the railway line. The defendants were held liable, because it was their practice, known to the plaintiff, to keep the gate locked when trains were passing, but the gate was left unlocked on this occasion.
1 Citers
Hambrook v Stokes Brothers; CA 1925 - [1925] 1 KB 141
Morgan v Liverpool Corporation [1927] 2 KB 131
1927
CA
Lord Hanworth MR, Atkin LJ, Lawrence LJ
Personal Injury, Landlord and Tenant
The tenant claimed that he had been injured when as the upper portion of a window was being opened one of the cords of the window sash broke and the top part of the window slipped down and caught and injured his hand. The plaintiff admitted that the defect was latent one (of which the plaintiff did not know and about which accordingly he could not give any notice) but it was contended that (there was a statutory obligation on the landlord which was different from that contained in an ordinary covenant and that in the Act, there were no words requiring that any notice should be given to the landlord. He said that L failed to perform the statutory obligationn that the house would be "kept in all respects reasonably fit "for human habitation." L had a right to enter the property to inspect its condition. Held: L was not liable. Liability would be conditional upon his having been given notice of any defects even though they were latent ones. The right to enter to inspect did not change this.
Lord Hanworth MR said that it was long established that where there is a covenant on the part of a landlord to keep premises in repair the tenant must give notice to the landlord of what is out of repair. Notice was required whether or not the landlord had means of access. The fact that the origin of a covenant was statutory did not give the covenant any higher authority than one inserted in a contract by the parties.
Atkin LJ said: "Here is a case of something which arose quite suddenly. It is possible that a very careful inspection of the window cords might have revealed the state in which they were, but there are many other defects which arise quite suddenly, leaks quite suddenly spring up in joints of water pipes and gas pipes, and so on, and to say that the landlord is responsible for the consequences of those not being in repair in circumstances in which no time could have elapsed between the time when the defect first arose and the time when the injury from it occurred, would certainly be to impose a very harsh obligation upon a landlord which the Courts do not impose except subject to a condition that he must receive notice of the defect. To my mind in those circumstances it is clear that, if the landlord gives the exclusive occupation to the tenant, the landlord does not in fact know, and in this case could not know of the defect."
In ordinary circumstances L's obligation to repair does not come into existence until he has notice of the defect which his contract to repair requires him to make good: "I think the power of access that is given, extensive though it may be, does not take the case away from the principle from which the Courts have inferred the condition that the liability is not to arise except on notice. The position is quite a satisfactory one, because as soon as the tenant is aware of the defect he must then give notice, and if the landlord does not repair it, the landlord will be liable. If in fact the tenant is not able to ascertain the defect, there seems to be no reason why the landlord should be exposed to what remains still the same injustice of being required to repair a defect of which he does not know, which seems to me to be the real reason for the rule. This was a case in which notice was not given to the landlord. As I have said, it appears to me that, as soon as the defect became so known by the fall of the sash, the tenant was able to give notice to the landlord and did give notice. In my view the landlord then became under a liability to repair in the circumstances of this case, because if he did not, the house would be in a state not in all respects fit for human habitation ; but as no notice was given, I think the landlord was not liable."
Lawrence LJ said: "On the question of notice I am in complete agreement with the judgments delivered by the Master of the Rolls and Atkin LJ and have very little to add. In my opinion the established rule is that the obligation of the landlord to keep the premises in repair is not broken unless notice has been given to him of the want of repair, and that mere knowledge is not sufficient to saddle the landlord with liability. The foundation of such rule is that the tenant in occupation is generally in a far better position to know of any want of repair. I am further of opinion that for the reasons stated by Atkin LJ the rule applies to latent as well as to patent defects, and certainly applies to the defect which existed in the present case."
Housing Act 1925
1 Citers
Coleshill v Manchester Corporation; 1928 - [1928] 1 KB 776
