Knowles v Liverpool City Council
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | Lord Keith of Kinkel,Lord Templeman,Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle,Lord Browne-Wilkinson,Lord Mustill |
| Judgment Date | 14 October 1993 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1993] UKHL J1014-2 |
| Date | 14 October 1993 |
| Court | House of Lords |
[1993] UKHL J1014-2
House of Lords
Lord Keith of Kinkell
Lord Templeman
Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle
Lord Browne-Wilkinson
Lord Mustill
My Lords,
For the reasons given in the speech to be delivered by my noble and learned friend Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle, which I have read in draft and with which I agree, I would dismiss this appeal.
My Lords,
For the reasons given by my noble and learned friend Lord Jauncey of Tullichettle I would dismiss the appeal.
My Lords,
This appeal relates to the construction of section 1 of the Employers' Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969. The facts are simple. The respondent was employed by the appellants as a labourer flagger repairing a pavement in a Liverpool street. While he was manhandling a flagstone into the shovel of a J.C.B. the corner of the flagstone broke off causing the stone to drop with consequent injury to the respondent's finger. The breakage occurred because the manufacturers, who were not the appellants, had failed to cure it properly. This defect could not reasonably have been discovered before the accident.
Section 1 of the Act of 1969 provides, inter alia:
"(1) Where after the commencement of this Act — ( a) an employee suffers personal injury in the course of his employment in consequence of a defect in equipment provided by his employer for the purposes of the employer's business; and ( b) the defect is attributable wholly or partly to the fault of a third party (whether identified or not), the injury shall be deemed to be also attributable to negligence on the part of the employer (whether or not he is liable in respect of the injury apart from this subsection), but without prejudice to the law relating to contributory negligence and to any remedy by way of contribution or in contract or otherwise which is available to the employer in respect of the injury.… (3) In this section — 'business' includes the activities carried on by any public body; 'employee' means a person who is employed by another person under a contract of service or apprenticeship and is so employed for the purposes of a business carried on by that other person, and 'employer' shall be construed accordingly; 'equipment' includes any plant and machinery, vehicle, aircraft and clothing; 'fault' means negligence, breach of statutory duty or other act or omission which gives rise to liability in tort in England and Wales or which is wrongful and gives rise to liability in damages in Scotland; and 'personal injury' includes loss of life, any impairment of a person's physical or mental condition and any disease."
The respondent raised an action against the appellants claiming damages on the ground, inter alia, that they were liable for his injury by virtue of section 1(1) of the Act. The recorder of Liverpool upheld the respondent's statutory claim holding that the flagstone was equipment for the purposes of the subsection and was defective. The Court of Appeal took the same view in dismissing the appellants' appeal.
Before this House Mr. Brathwaite for the appellants sought to draw a distinction between "plant" on the one hand, which comprehended such things as tools and machinery required for the performance of a particular task, and "stock-in-trade" on the other, which covered articles produced by the use of plant and machinery. Equipment fell firmly on the side of plant. He argued further that material was to be distinguished from equipment and was therefore excluded from the latter. He sought to obtain support for these propositions from certain dicta in three cases in this House, Davie v. New Merton Board Mills Ltd. [1959] A.C. 604, Haigh v. Charles W. Ireland Ltd. [1973] 3 All E.R. 1137and Coltman v. Bibby Tankers Ltd. [1988] 1 A.C. 276, together with a consideration of certain provisions in primary and secondary legislation.
It is common ground that the Act of 1969 was passed as a result of the decision in Davie v. New Merton Board Mills. In that case, a workman sustained injury as a result of his use of a defective tool supplied to him by his employers. The tool had been negligently manufactured by reputable manufacturers and no reasonable inspection by the employers would have disclosed the latent defect. The workman's claim that the employers were negligent in supplying him with a defective tool failed on the ground that they had discharged their duty to take reasonable care to provide a reasonably safe tool by buying from a reputable source a tool whose latent defect they had no means of discovering, it followed from this decision that a workman who was injured by a defect in an article provided by his employer might in certain circumstances find himself with a remedy which was enforceable only, if at all, against a manufacturer of whom, to use the words of Viscount Simonds at pp. 620–621, even the employer might "never have heard and from whom he may be divided in time and space by decades and continents". Parliament clearly considered this to be an unsatisfactory situation and passed the Act whose purpose is set out in the long title as follows:
"An Act to make further provision with respect to the liability of an employer for injury to his employee which is attributable to any defect in equipment provided by the employer for the purposes of the employer's business; and for purposes connected with the matter aforesaid."
Mr. Braithwaite argued that this House in Davie v. New Merton Board Mills Ltd. [1959] A.C. 604 was only dealing with a tool or appliance, that the decision did not turn on the distinction which he sought to draw between tools and appliances on the one hand and stock-in-trade on the other and that the Act should be construed against this limited background. It is true that the article in question in Davie was a tool but it is quite wrong to suppose that their Lordships would have applied different principles had the cause of injury been part of an article which was being incorporated in manufacture, rather than a tool used in the manufacture thereof. The duty to take reasonable care to provide a safe tool is only one facet of an employer's general duty to take reasonable care for the safety of his workmen. This common law duty extends just as much to material used in manufacture as to tools and appliances necessary to enable such material to be so used. Although there are passages in the speeches in Davie which relate the employer's duty solely to tools and appliances, that is because it was a defective tool which was the cause of injury and there are other passages which demonstrate that no such restriction exists in principle. Lord Morton of Henryton said, at p. 628:
"At common law a master owes a general duty to his servants to take reasonable care for their safety. The duty, so far as it relates to the providing of appliances for the use of the servants, was defined by Lord Herschell, in terms which have often...
To continue reading
Request your trial
- Associated Newspapers Ltd v Wilson ; Associated British Ports v Palmer and Others
- Smith v Northamptonshire County Council
-
Spencer-Franks v Kellogg Brown and Root Ltd
...to draw in this connection in the light of, inter alia, the decision and reasoning of the House in Knowles v. Liverpool City Council [1994] ICR 243, where a flagstone being laid by a council employee was held to be "equipment provided by his employer for the purposes of the employer's busin......
-
Spencer-Franks v. Kellogg Brown and Root Ltd. et al., [2008] N.R. Uned. 257 (HL)
...to draw in this connection in the light of, inter alia, the decision and reasoning of the House in Knowles v. Liverpool City Council [1994] I.C.R. 243, where a flagstone being laid by a council employee was held to be "equipment provided by his employer for the purposes of the employer......