Beckett v Newalls Insulation Company Ltd and Lightfoot Refrigeration Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SINGLETON,LORD JUSTICE MORRIS |
| Judgment Date | 01 December 1952 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1952] EWCA Civ J1201-1 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Date | 01 December 1952 |
[1952] EWCA Civ J1201-1
IN THE SUPREME COURT OF JUDICATURE
COURT OF APPEAL
LORD JUSTICE SINGLETON and
LORD JUSTICE MORRIS
Counsel for the Appellant: MR GEOFFREY VEALE, Q.C., and MR J. HARVEY ROBSON, instructed by Messrs Isadore Goldman & Son, Agents for Messrs Crute & Sons, Sunderland.
Counsel for the First Respondents: MR H. HYLTON-FOSTER, Q.C., and MR G.S. WALKER, instructed by Mr Denis Hayes, London.
Counsel for the Second Respondents: MR MARVEN EVERETT, Q.C., and MR NORMAN HARPER, instructed by Messrs Barlow, Lyde & Gilbert, London.
This is an appeal by Mr Norman Beckett, who was a plasterer's labourer employed by the First Defendants, Newalls Insulation Company, Ltd., and who was working on a ship, the "Gyrotoma", when he met with an accident on the 30th May, 1950. The "Gyrotoma" was being fitted out at Sunderland. The Second Defendants, the Lightfoot Refrigeration Company, Ltd., were putting in the refrigerating insulation, and the First Defendants, Newalls Insulation Company, Ltd., had to do some plastering in two chambers of the ship in which the refrigerating insulation was in the course of construction. Mr Beckett, who was some 20 years of age at the time, and another man, Edmunds, who was senior to Beckett, were employed in doing plastering work, and they had to get on with that work so that the refrigerating people could complete their work. The day of the accident was Whit Tuesday. On the Friday before Whitsuntide the Refrigeration Company had certain men working there, and their foreman engineer was a man named Spencer. For the purpose of their work they had taken on to the ship a container which contained gas. The gas from that container should go through a regulator and along a cable to the end of the cable where it is used for brazing, and that process had been used on the Friday morning. Some time on the Friday when work ceased the foreman of the Refrigeration Company took the cable off the container, and he put the container with other tackle in a corner of one of the two rooms in which plastering work had to be done. He put his tackle in the outer room, which is called the vegetable room. The inner room was the meat room. On that Saturday and on the Sunday the Insulation Company's men, Edmunds and Beckett, were working on plastering, and they finished first theirplastering work in the inner room, the meat room. When they had done that they had to work in the vegetable room. It was found that the tackle left by the Refrigeration Company's men was in the way, and consequently the container was moved by Edmunds from the vegetable room into the meat room. That was on the Sunday at lunch-time. Edmunds and Beckett continued their work on the Sunday; there was no work done on the Monday. On the Tuesday morning Beckett went to continue his work. The Refrigeration Company's men had not worked from the Friday night. The part of the ship in which Beckett had to work on the Tuesday morning was in darkness. They had been working by electric light the previous week, but on the Saturday the had been taken out and electricity was not connected, so that they were unable to use electric light on the Sunday, and they used candles. When Beckett went into the vegetable chamber on the Tuesday morning he looked around for a bulb; not seeing any he went into the inner chamber, and as it was pitch black he struck a match to find the bulbs which he believed were put away somewhere in the inner chamber. He was asked what happened, and he replied: "It went up and blew us into the next chamber." What he meant was it blew him back from the meat chamber into the vegetable chamber. There was an explosion, and the next thing that he knew was that he picked himself up from the floor. He was burned and quite seriously injured.
When his claim was made before Mr Justice Stable the Judge, at the request of Counsel, provisionally assessed the damages to which he would have been entitled had he succeeded, at the sum of £615; but the learned Judge found that there was no liabilityupon either of the Defendants, and he gave judgment for both Defendants with costs.
The action which Mr Beckett had brought against both Defendants was based on negligence. He alleged that the First Defendants were negligent in the way in which Edmunds had handled the gas cylinder; and, alternatively, he alleged that the Second Defendants, the Lightfoot Refrigeration Company, Ltd., were negligent, and he gave particulars which are these: "… They left the cylinder in the refrigerator in a faulty and defective and dangerous condition so that gas would or might escape from it. They left it where it might have to be handled by others with the valve exposed and without a proper protective cap or other looking device fitted on it so that anyone handling the cylinder would be likely to take hold of the valve itself and turn it with the result that gas would be permitted to escape. They failed to give any adequate warning of the danger of taking hold of the valve to other persons who might have occasion to approach or handle the cylinder."
That was the case which the Plaintiff set up against the Second Defendants.
Mr Justice Stable heard the evidence of a number of witnesses, and came to the conclusion that the Plaintiff had not proved a case against either of the Defendants. The Plaintiff appeals against that judgment.
There was an expert witness called for the Plaintiff, a Mr Rogers, and there was also an engineer, an expert witness, Mr Barr, called on behalf of the Second Defendants, and Edmunds gave evidence for the First Defendants, and Spencer, the foreman engineer of the Second Defendants, gave evidence upon theirbehalf.
The case for the Plaintiff, as put forward in this Court, was that the Second Defendants were dealing with something of a dangerous character, to wit gas, and they did not use sufficient care in the way they left the container.
Mr Veale, in his submission made upon behalf of the Plaintiff, referred us to some words of Lord Wright in the case of North-Western Utilities, Ltd v. London Guarantee and Accident Company, Ltd reported in 1936 Appeal Cases at page 109, here at pages 118, 119 and 120 the learned Law Lord dealt with dangerous things in general, and said: "That gas is a dangerous thing within the rules applicable to things dangerous in themselves is beyond question. Thus the appellants who are carrying in their mains the inflammable and explosive gas are prima facie within the principle of Rylands v. Fletcher, affirming Fletcher v. Rylands; that is to say, that although they are doing nothing wrongful in carrying the dangerous thing so long as they keep it in their pipes, they come prima facie within the rule of strict liability if the gas escapes; the gas constitutes an extraordinary danger created by the appellants for their own purposes, and the rule established by Rylands v. Fletcher requires that they act at their peril and must pay for damage caused by the gas if it escapes, even without any negligence on their part. The rule is not limited to cases where the defendant has been carrying or accumulating the dangerous thing on his own land; it applies equally in a case like the present where the appellants were carrying the gas in mains laid in the property of the City (that is the sub-soil) in exercise of a franchise to do so"; and Lord Wright repeated the wordsof Lord Dunedin in Dominion Natural Gas Company v. Collins and Perkins, and said at the top of page 120 of the report: "'Have the defendants been able to show affirmatively that the true cause of the accident was the conscious act of another volition, that is, the tempering with the machines by the railway company's workmen?' It is not here intended to enumerate all the defences which might be available to a defendant in this class of action; but the two defences mentioned are both material in this case."
The First Defendants, by their Defence, had denied negligence, and alleged in Paragraph 3 of their Defence: "The said accident was caused or contributed to by the negligence of the second named defendants as alleged in Paragraph 4 o the Statement of Claim." The Second Defendants in their Defence denied negligence, and alleged in Paragraph 4 of their Defence: "The accident to the Plaintiff, if any, was wholly or directly partly caused by the negligence of the Plaintiff himself and of the said Edmonds and of some other servant of the first Defendants or of one or more of them in handling a cylinder of calor gas and moving and using it in such manner as to open the valve of the cylinder and to permit the escape of gas from it and in leaving the said cylinder or causing or permitting it to be left in a confined space in the said ship without closing or ensuring that the valve thereof was securely and tightly closed and in leaving or permitting the said cylinder to be left with the gas escaping from it and (in the case of the Plaintiff) in striking a match in a chamber where he knew a cylinder of calor gas had been so left without first ascertaining whether it was safe to expose a naked light."
The first thing I would say about the container is that it is said that there are really two stops or stoppers upon it. The first is a valve, and if that valve is securely turned it will stop any escape of gas. Beyond that and between that and where the cable would be if the cable was affixed, is a regulator, and it is said that if that regulator is properly adjusted (and it is claimed it was), then there can be no escape even if the valve is open.
One matter which I think is a little unfortunate is that no one explained precisely what the condition of the container was after the accident. There is in Court, and there has been throughout the hearing of this case, a...
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