Brown v Baton Colliery Company
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 15 January 1921 |
| Docket Number | No. 31. |
| Date | 15 January 1921 |
| Court | Court of Session |
Lord Justice-Clerk (Scott Dickson), Lord Dundas, Lord Ormidale.
Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 (6 Edw. VII cap. 58), sec. 1 (1)—‘Out of and in the course of the employment’—Electrician injured by electric current—Neglect to remove fuse—Added peril.
An electrician, employed in a mine, while doing a job connected with a ‘gate-end box,’ noticed that the box was dirty. The work of cleaning the box could not safely be performed without cutting off the current, and this the electrician was entitled to do by removing a fuse situated at the pit-bottom some 600 yards distant. Noticing, however, from the stopping of an electric pump, that the current had been switched off at the surface, he took the opportunity of cleaning out the box, although he knew the danger involved from the fact that the current might be turned on again at any moment. While he was cleaning the box the current was turned on, and he was injured.
Held that the accident did not arise out of the employment, but was due to a peril added by the workman's own actings and not reasonably incidental to his employment.
In an arbitration under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, in the Sheriff Court of Lanarkshire at Airdrie, William W. Brown, apprentice electrician, claimed compensation from his employers, Baton Colliery Company, Limited, in respect of injuries sustained by him while working at the Baton Colliery, Dykehead, Shotts. The Sheriff-substitute (Macdiarmid) refused compensation, and, at the request of the workman, stated a case for appeal.
The case set forth the following facts as admitted or proved:—‘(1) That on 27th October 1919 the pursuer and appellant, who is nineteen years of age and an apprentice electrician, was injured by accident while employed by the defenders and respondents, and working in their Baton Colliery, Dykehead, Shotts. (2) That at the date of said accident the pursuer and appellant was working in said pit as an assistant electrician, having been duly appointed by the manager, conform to certificate dated 20th February 1919, in the following terms:—“Coal Mines Act, 1911.—Baton Colliery, 20th February 1919.—William Brown is hereby appointed to examine and repair electrical apparatus. Signed, Ed. Somerville, Manager. I hereby accept the above-mentioned appointment. Signed, William W. Brown”; and that he and John Stevenson, also duly appointed, were responsible, under the chief electrical engineer, for the examination and repair mentioned in said certificate. (3) That the said accident occurred as follows:—Stevenson and the pursuer and appellant had on the day in question, in allocating the work to be done between them, arranged that the pursuer and appellant should proceed to the gate-end box in the Smithy Coal Section for the purpose of pulling a negative earthing wire round said box. For this job it was not necessary that the electric current should be switched off. The pursuer and appellant proceeded to said box and duly completed the job. At three o'clock each afternoon the electric current in said pit was switched off in order that the load might be transferred from two generators to one, and this operation was performed on the surface of the pit and out with the control of the pursuer and appellant, the time during which the current was off not being fixed and calculable but variable. At three o'clock on the said day the pursuer and appellant, who had completed the job above referred to, had shut the gate-end box, and was gathering up his tools preparatory to departure, observed, from the stopping of an electric pump, that the current was off for the purpose of transferring the load. While he had been at work pulling the earthing wire round the box he had noticed dirt in the box, and, seizing what he conceived to be an opportunity of removing the dirt, he, when he observed that the pump had ceased to work, reopened the box and proceeded to attempt to remove the dirt, and, the current being at that moment switched on, his hands were very severely burned by contact with live wire. (4) That it is agreed between parties that the pursuer's and appellant's appointment“to examine and repair electrical apparatus”carried with it the duty to remove dirt from a gate-end box. (5) That the dirt in gate-end boxes was generally removed at specific times, that is to say, when extensions were put on the cable, an operation performed at regular intervals and for which the electric current was switched off; but that it was not unknown for dirt so to be removed when any repair was being done but never without the current being switched off for that purpose. (6) That the dirt which the pursuer and appellant attempted to remove from said gate-end box could not have been removed without the workman's hands coming in contact with live wire unless the current had first been switched off, and that the pursuer and appellant had never seen anyone attempt nor had he ever attempted to remove dirt from a gate-end box when the current was on. (7) That for the discharge of his duties of examination, repair, and cleaning, the pursuer and appellant was entitled, if he deemed it necessary, to take off the electric current, and that this was done by the removal of a fuse at the pit-bottom (some 600 yards distant from the gate-end box in question), the electrician who removed the fuse bearing it away with him so that he might keep control of the current. (8) That on the day in question there was no immediate necessity for the removal of the said dirt from said box, and that the pursuer and appellant himself says that he attempted to remove it, when he noticed that the current was off, as above mentioned, because “We like to keep things clean.” (9) That the pursuer and appellant had not been given instructions, either written or verbal, forbidding him to do any part of his work in any particular way, but that he knew the correct way in which to go about it, and in especial he was well aware that he could not remove the dirt he attempted to remove were the electric current on. (10) That in attempting to remove dirt, as above set forth, the pursuer and appellant was obviously taking, and knew that he was taking, a very grave risk, more especially as he had no control over the current at the time, and knew that the time during which it would be off was not a fixed but a variable time, and that the taking off and putting on thereof might be, as it was in this instance, practically instantaneous.’
The case further stated:—‘In these circumstances I found that the said accident did not arise out of the employment, and refused the crave of the petition.’
The question of law for the opinion of the Court was:—‘On the above facts was I entitled to find that the accident did not arise out of the employment?’
The case was heard before the Second Division (without Lord Salvesen) on 12th and 13th January 1921.
Argued for the appellant;—A workman, though he acted recklessly or negligently, or did a thing in a wrong way, could recover...
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