Lane v Gloucester Engineering Company Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE SELLERS,LORD JUSTICE RUSSELL |
| Judgment Date | 02 March 1967 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1967] EWCA Civ J0302-2 |
| Court | Court of Appeal (Civil Division) |
| Date | 02 March 1967 |
[1967] EWCA Civ J0302-2
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
The Court of Appeal
(Civil Division)
(From: His Honour Judge Bulger -Gloucester County Court)
Lord Justice Sellers
Lord Justice Davies and
Lord Justice Russell
Mr. MICHAEL LEWER (instructed by Messrs. Evill & Coleman) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Plaintiff).
Mr. PETER FALLON (instructed by Messrs. Cartwright, Taylor & Corpe, Bristol) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Defendants).
What this appeal is seeking is almost the consultative opinion of this Court upon section 5 of the Factories Act, 1961, and in particular upon one of the regulations made in consequence or in pursuance of that section under the Factories (Standards of Lighting) Regulations, 1941. On the facts of this case the plaintiff ought not to succeed even if there had been a breach of statutory duty established. In the circumstances, to my way of thinking he brought this misfortune on himself, and it is difficult to see how he could have thought otherwise.
The plaintiff was a welder, some 56 years of age, and he had been at work in that capacity for many years. On the 23rd October, 1964, whilst he was in the defendants' factory he met with an accident. He had been at work in a shop in the factory some 150 feet by 30 feet. He worked by day in that shop. We have a plan of the lighting in that particular part, for it is on lighting that this complaint is made against the employers.
The evidence was (and so it would appear from the plan) that when all the lights were on the factory was exceptionally well lit. Down the centre there was a row of what are called strip lights - fluorescent lights. There were also down each side of that relatively narrow shop a number of tungsten lights. No one complained that when work was taking place the factory was not well lit. During the night time it was the practice to leave on some pilot lights, as they have been called (they are depicted on the plan), three of them, almost equally distributed over the ceiling of the shop. Those three strip lights gave a satisfactory light of something over 0. 5 foot-candles, and the plaintiff himself said that he could read by those lights alone.
The day before the plaintiff's accident, work had been in progress in this shop, as one would contemplate. We do not know what the work was but I apprehend that it was taking place throughout the length and breadth of the shop. There happened to be in one particular place at the time a commodity in course ofproduction called a mixer, which was some 17 feet long by 5 feet high and some 3 feet wide. For the purpose of manufacturing a tie-bar had been used and it had been placed down in the working area somewhere alongside that mixer. The whole trouble here seems to have arisen firstly because of the plaintiff's particular habits and secondly because he had some fortnight before changed the place where he had been working in the factory. The plaintiff said that he suffered from bronchitis and he liked to get to work early before his work was due to commence at 7. 30. He liked to get there about 7. 10 and sit down and have a rest and to read. He apparently was generally the first to arrive. He had to come in (as far as is shown on the plan) along a corridor or track internally and clock in at a place just adjacent to the shop. Having done that, it had been his habit to go to his bench, which is very near the mark "B" on the plan, "B" being the place where the switch for the tungsten lighting is situated. That he would light up, although his work was not going to start then, and it was only put on for the purpose of the plaintiff being able to read his paper or to read it more comfortably. He switched on those lights. There was convenient access to "B": it was only some 7 feet from the way by which he would walk to his bench.
The plaintiff had changed his place of work some fortnight before, his place of work being then over on the far side of the entrance to the right at a place marked "C" on the plan. On this morning he changed his habit I do not think he had ever done it before this occasion and he thought that, instead of switching on the tungsten lighting at "B", he would go across the distance of the shop to the wall on the other side, almost opposite where he entered, at the point marked "A" on the plan, where there was the switch, not for the tungsten lighting, which was quite near to where he had come in, but for the fluorescent strip lighting. On that occasion his preference was for that. No doubt the lighting would all have gone on by 7. 30 but although he was alone he wished to put it on for his own purposes.
To make his way to the point "A" across the working floor, he chose to go (and I say that deliberately because I can see no requirement for him to go) closely adjacent to this mixer and on the side of it which was the more remote from a light. True it war the most direct journey, but if in fact it was in shadow he could have looked at the other side. He said that he did not look, although I think he did say there was no way that side, or he could have turned to his left and gone down the shop that way. But he chose to go straight ahead. There was a shadow cast by this 5-feet high mixer which was being made and somehow or other, not looking, he tripped over the tie-bar, which was properly there in the working place for the construction of the mixer. He fell over and as it happened hurt himself, although immediately afterwards he got up and put lights on, I think the fluorescent lights, and went over to his bench.
It is for that accident that the plaintiff blames his employers. I must say for myself that I find it very hard to see how he could come to blame them. If anything was his own fault, that was. But in these days everyone has to seek for a remedy, and the remedy that was sought - amongst other things; the one which has survived to this Court - is that it has been alleged that the employers were in breach of the Factories Act, section 5. It was also said (learned counsel for the respondents has challenged its accuracy) that there was a breach of the Factories (Standards of Lighting) Regulations, 1941.
The "Lighting" provision (which I think came first into the 1937 Act) is as follows. Section 5 sub-section 1: "Effective provision shall be made for securing and maintaining sufficient and suitable lighting, whether natural or artificial, in every part of a factory in which persons are working or passing".
Under sub-section 2 provision is made for the Minister to make regulations prescribing "a standard of sufficient and suitable lighting for factories", and that brought forth after some years, in 1941, these regulations. Reference has been made in particular to Regulation 2 (a) and (b) and to Regulation 4.Regulation 2 (a) reads: "The general illumination over those interior parts of the factory where persons are regularly employed shall be not less than 6 foot-candles measured in the horizontal plane at a level of 3 feet above the floor: Provided that in any such parts in which the mounting height of the light sources for general illumination necessarily exceeds 25 feet measured from the floor or where the structure of the room or the position or construction of the fixed machinery or plant prevents the uniform attainment of this standard, the general illumination at the said level shall be not less than 2 foot-candles, and where work is actually being done the illumination shall be not less than 6 foot-candles or the greatest reasonably practicable illumination below 6 foot-candles".
Regulation 2 (b): "The illumination over all other interior parts of the factory over which persons employed pass shall when and where a person is passing be not less than 0. 5 foot-candles at floor level".
Regulation 4: "Adequate measures shall be taken, so far as reasonably practicable, to prevent the formation of shadows which cause eye-strain or. risk of accident to any person employed".
The first matter for consideration is whether the regulations apply at all to the...
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