Weekly payments of 35s. each were made for six months to a workman injured by an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment. Thereafter the workman and his employers entered into an agreement for the payment of a lump sum of pounds 75 in discharge of all claims in respect of the accident. The Registrar, on the ground of the inadequacy of the sum agreed on, refused to record the memorandum which had been forwarded to him. The employers having thereafter stopped the weekly payment, the workman, who had not accepted the pounds 75, commenced arbitration proceedings, in the course of which the decision of the County Court Judge refusing to record the memorandum as inadequate was reversed by the Court of Appeal. The workman appealed to the House of Lords. Held, ( diss. Lord Carson) that to enter into an agreement to discharge all claims under the Act for a lump sum except that to a weekly payment or the liability therefor is to contract out of the Act; that the agreement in question could be sustained as an agreement for the redemption of a weekly payment by a lump sum within the meaning of Schedule I (17) and Schedule II (9) and (10), it being reasonably capable of that construction, and that it might therefore be objected to by the Registrar.
The English decisions reviewed and overruled.
Burns v. William Baird and Company, Limited (1913 S.C. 358, 50 S.L.R. 280) and William Baird and Company, Limited v. Ancient Order of Foresters (1914 S.C. 965, 51 S.L.R. 819), approved.
Per Lord Shaw-‘There may be an agreement between an employer and workman for redemption of a weekly payment, not only in the case where there had first been an agreed-on weekly payment prior to the redemption, but also in the case where there was simply the liability under the statute to make a weekly payment.
Judges:
Lord Chancellor, Lord Dunedin, Lord Shaw, Lord Buckmaster, and Lord Carson
Citations:
[1923] UKHL 43 – 1, 61 SLR 43 – 1
Links:
Statutes:
Workmen’s Compensation Act 1906
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment, Personal Injury
Updated: 26 March 2022; Ref: scu.633256
