Chief Adjudication Officer v Faulds
| Jurisdiction | UK Non-devolved |
| Judge | LORD BROWNE-WILKINSON,LORD MACKAY OF CLASHFERN,LORD HOPE OF CRAIGHEAD,LORD CLYDE,LORD HUTTON |
| Judgment Date | 11 May 2000 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [2000] UKHL J0511-2 |
| Court | House of Lords |
| Docket Number | No 6 |
| Date | 11 May 2000 |
[2000] UKHL J0511-2
Lord Browne-Wilkinson
Lord Mackay of Clashfern
Lord Hope of Craighead
Lord Clyde
Lord Hutton
HOUSE OF LORDS
My Lords,
I have had the benefit of reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend Lord Clyde. I agree with it and for the reasons which he gives would allow the appeal and remit the matter to the commissioner for further investigation.
My Lords,
I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech prepared by my noble and learned friend Lord Clyde. For the reasons, which he has given, I would allow the appeal but require the case to be remitted to the commissioner for further investigation.
My Lords,
I have had the advantage of reading in draft the speech which has been prepared by my noble and learned friend Lord Clyde. For the like reasons I too would allow the appeal and remit the case to the commissioner. But I wish to add these observations as we are differing from the views expressed both by the commissioner and the Inner House of the Court of Session and in the recognition of the quality of the speeches which were addressed to us from both sides of the Bar during the hearing of the appeal.
The case is concerned with the right of the respondent to industrial injuries benefit. He is entitled to a declaration under section 44(2) of the Social Security Administration Act 1992 ("the Administration Act") of his entitlement to this benefit if he can prove, on a balance of probabilities, that he suffered personal injury caused by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment: see section 94(1) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 ("the Benefits Act"). The condition from which he has been suffering has been diagnosed as post traumatic stress disorder. It is not disputed that a psychiatric illness of this kind may constitute personal injury for the purposes of industrial injuries benefit. Nor is it disputed that there is sufficient evidence to prove that his disorder is attributable to stress which he encountered arising out of and in the course of his employment as a senior fire officer. The disputed question is whether he has proved that this was caused "by accident" within the meaning of section 94(1) of the Benefits Act. The case raises a question of general public importance about the requirements which persons in stressful occupations who develop stress-related illnesses have to meet in order to qualify for industrial injuries benefit.
The use of the phrase "by accident" in legislation for the provision of compensation or other benefits for personal injury sustained in the course of employment has a long history. Section 1(1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897 provided that if in any employment to which the Act applied a workman suffered "personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment" he was to be entitled to compensation from his employers. The same expression was used in section 1(1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1906. It was repeated in section 1(1) of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1925, which remained in force until the system of workmen's compensation was replaced by the system of national insurance for industrial injuries which was introduced by the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1946. The new legislation adopted the same phrase to define the persons who were to be entitled to benefit. Section 7(1) of the Act of 1946 provided that benefit was payable to an insured person who suffered "personal injury caused after 4 July 1948 [the date when the new system was to come into force] by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment." This phrase has been preserved in all the subsequent enactments as the basis for entitlement to benefit: see section 5(1) of the National Insurance (Industrial Injuries) Act 1965, section 50(1) of the Social Security Act 1975 and section 94(1) of the Benefits Act.
Our attention was drawn to a number of decisions in your Lordships' House in which consideration has been given to the meaning of this phrase. For the purposes of the Workmen's Compensation Acts the word "accident" was given a wide meaning according to its use in ordinary and popular language. In Fenton v. J. Thorley & Co. Ltd. [1903] A.C. 443, 448 Lord Macnaghten said that:
"the expression 'accident' is used in the popular and ordinary sense of the word as denoting an unlooked - for mishap or an untoward event which is not expected or designed."
Lord Shand said at p. 451:
"I shall only add that, concurring as I fully do in holding that the word 'accident' in the statute is to be taken in its popular and ordinary sense, I think it denotes or includes any unexpected personal injury resulting to the workman in the course of his employment from any unlooked-for mishap or occurrence."
Lord Lindley said at p. 453:
"The word 'accident' is not a technical legal term with a clearly defined meaning. Speaking generally, but with reference to legal liabilities, an accident means any unintended and unexpected occurrence which produces hurt or loss. But it is often used to denote any unintended and unexpected loss or hurt apart from its cause; and if the cause is not known the loss or hurt itself would certainly be called an accident. The word 'accident' is also often used to denote both the cause and the effect, no attempt being made to discriminate between them."
In Fenton's case a workman who ruptured himself by an act of over-exertion in trying to turn a wheel was held to have suffered an injury "by accident." That was what Lord Lindley had in mind when he referred to "any unexpected and unintended loss or hurt apart from its cause" as being something which fell within the ordinary meaning of "accident." The act of turning the wheel was not in itself an accident. But the injury which the man sustained while carrying out this task fell within the ordinary meaning of the word, looking to the effect rather than to the cause. The same view was taken of the case of a man who died from heat stroke while raking ashes out of a boiler in the stokehold of a steamship: Ismay, Imrie & Co. v. Williamson [1908] A.C. 437.
In Clover, Clayton & Co. Ltd. v. Hughes [1910] A.C. 242 a man was tightening a nut by a spanner at his work when he suddenly fell down dead from the rupture of aneurism. It was held that this was a case of personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of the employment within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Acts. There was a division of opinion on the question whether the accident was one "arising out of the employment" as the man's aneurism was at such an advanced state that it might have burst at any time. But it was agreed that the rupture, which was unexpected and untoward event, was an "accident." Lord Macnaghten said at p. 249 that Pugh v. The London, Brighton and South Coast Railway Co. [1896] 2 Q.B. 248 was a very good example of the far-reaching application of that word.
In Pugh's case a signalman who saw that there was something wrong one of the carriages of a train approaching at full speed so that the train was in danger leant from the window of his signal-box and waved a red flag so that the driver might stop the train. The train was stopped and there was no accident to it or to any of its passengers. But the excitement and fright produced a nervous shock in the signalman which incapacitated him from his employment with the railway company. He was held to have been incapacitated by accident within the meaning of the company's insurance policy. Lord Esher M.R. said at p. 251 that the fright which he underwent was the accident.
In Welsh v. Glasgow Coal Co. Ltd., 1916 S.C.(H.L.) 141, a workman developed rheumatism caused by his immersion for several hours while baling out water which had accumulated in a pit. It was held that he had met with an injury by accident within the meaning of section 1 of the Act of 1906. Viscout Haldane said at p. 142 that the definition of accident in Fenton v. J. Thorley & Co. Ltd. [1903] A.C. 443 covered the case, and that the miscalculated action of entering the water must be taken to constitute a definite event which imported into that event the character of an accident. At p. 145 Lord Kinnear said:
"… it must now be taken as settled that, while a disease is not in itself an accident, it may be incurred 'by accident,' and that that is enough to satisfy the statute. On this point, indeed, the statute is its own interpreter. For the section which enables certain industrial diseases to be treated as accidents, although in fact they are not accidental, provides that this is not to affect the right of a workman to recover compensation in respect of a disease to which the section does not apply 'if the disease is a personal injury by accident in the sense of the Act.'"
In the light of these authorities it seems to me that there would have been no difficulty in the respondent's case if he had led evidence to show that his post traumatic stress disorder was caused by the shock or distress which he suffered when attending a single incident, or each of a series of incidents, in the course of his employment as a senior fire officer. The effect which the incident or series of incidents had on him would have been, in Lord Lindley's words, an "unexpected and unintended loss or hurt," whatever view one might take as to whether the incident which produced that effect was or was not an accident.
That however is not the way in which the evidence was presented in this case. In the form which he completed on 16 June 1994 when he was claiming benefit the respondent described his accident...
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