Pearce v Stanley-Bridges Ltd
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judge | LORD JUSTICE WILLMER,LORD JUSTICE HARMAN,LORD JUSTICE WINN |
| Judgment Date | 29 April 1965 |
| Judgment citation (vLex) | [1965] EWCA Civ J0429-3 |
| Date | 29 April 1965 |
| Court | Court of Appeal |
| Docket Number | 1962. P. No. 2623 |
[1965] EWCA Civ J0429-3
In The Supreme Court of Judicature
Court of Appeal
Revised
Appeal from Order of Mcnair J. dated 23rd November, 1964.
Lord Justice Willmer,
Lord Justice Harman and
Lord Justice Winn
Mr B. EMLYN HOOSON, Q.C., and Mr L. STUART SHIELDS (Instructed by Messrs W.H. Thompson) appeared on behalf of the Appellant (Plaintiff).
Mr DAVID P. CROOM-JOHNSON, Q.C., and Mr RONALD HOPKINS (instructed by Messrs Geoffrey Coombs & Co.) appeared on behalf of the Respondents (Defendants).
This is an appeal from a judgment of Mr Justice McNair given on the 23rd November 1964, whereby he dismissed a claim brought by a workman against his employers for damages for personal injuries sustained in the course of his work. The claim was based on allegations of common law negligence and breach of statutory duty.
The plaintiff is an experienced maintenance fitter, now some fifty years of age, and he had the misfortune to meet with an accident, which took place on the 10th July 1961. Whilst he was engaged in the task of adjusting a compressed air lifting machine,which had gone out of order, the machine moved in such a way as to trap his arm, whereby he sustained quite a serious Injury.
The lifting machine concerned consists of a platform, on top of which rollers are fitted, which is designed for the purpose of raising components placed upon it from just above ground level to a height of about 3 ft. 6 ins. above the ground. Adjacent to this platform, and on the right-band side of it some ins. from it, is the end of a conveyor apparatus which also is at a height of about 3 ft. 6 ins. from the ground. This conveyor apparatus is itself fitted with rollers on to which the load on the lifting platform can be pushed when the platform is raised. I need not go into grest detail in describing the machine, which is well illustrated in photographs which have been placed before us, and which is fully described by the learned judge in his judgment. It is a machine which is operated by compressed air, the compressed air being regulated by an air pressure valve, which in turn is actuated by a switch similar to an electric light switch, at least in appearance.
At the time of the accident the air pressure valve in question was housed in a box on the right-hand side of the column at the back of the machine, that is to say, on the far side of the iifting platform. I pause to remark that since the accident the position of that air pressure valve has been altered, and it is now housed in a box on the left-hand side of the machine, that is on the side away from the conveyor apparatus. Nothing, however, turns upon that change, which has been made since the accident. The switch by which the machine is operated is mounted on an angle iron which forms part of the structure supporting the rollers of the conveyor. As originally installed, the switch was one which had to be pushed down in order to raise the platform. When the switch was pushed into the up position, the platform would return to its position near floor level day of the accident, the machine, as I have said, had already gone out of order and would not work. The plaintiff was accordingly called in to look at it and to adjust It. The situation was that when the switch was operated, nothing happened, therebyshowing that for some reason or another, no air (or no sufficient air) was getting through to the valve which operates the lifting apparatus. The plaintiff accordingly proceeded to the adjustment of this air pressure valve. In order to do this, he knelt down on his left knee in front of the gap between the lifting platform and the conveyor, with his right knee raised, and with his right arm he reached past the line of travel of the lifting platform so as to get at the valve that had to be adjusted. He made one adjustment and then tried the switch again, but still nothing happened and the apparatus would not work. He thereupon knelt down again and proceeded to make a further adjustment to the air pressure valve. It was When he was doing this that for some reason or another the platform started to rise. It appears to have caught in his trousers and thereby limited his ability to move, with the result that before he could get out of the way his arm, which was stretched out in front of him to get at the valve, was caught by the rising platform and carried up against the angle iron at the end of the conveyor apparatus. The consequence of that was that be suffered injury, the particular injury being damage to the ulnar nerve of his right arm.
The plaintiff's case as it was originally pleaded was that he had put the switch into the "off" position, that is to say, with the swttch up, but in spite of the switch being in the "off" position, the platform rose in the way I have described. This, it was alleged, showed that the machine must have been in a defective condition due to faulty maintenance, and in those circumstances the plaintiff contended that the defect constituted both negligence at common law and also a breach of sedtion 22, subsection (1), of the Factories Act, 1937.
At the trial leave to amand the statement of claim was granted, and it was then alleged that at some time before the accident someone in the employ of the defendants had tampered with the switch and had altered the way in which it worked, leaving it so that it operated in the reverse direction from that in which ithad operated previously. Consequently, when the plaintiff put the switch in the up position, which he thought was the position of safety, it was in fact in the position which would cause the platform to rise. This alteration to the switch had, according to the amended statement of claim, been carried out without any warning to the plaintiff, so that the machine, in the condition in which it was on the day of the accident, constituted a dangerous trap for the plaintiff.
This new case which was put forward on behalf of the plaintiff was to a large extent based on evidence which was given by a police officer, Mr Wood, who was called in after the accident had taken place. Upon being called, this witness, in answer to a question by the learned judge, admitted that he really preserved no recollection apart from the report which he had made in his notebook at the time of, or shortly after, the accident. On that basis he was allowed to read his report as part of his evidence-in-chef. His report was contained in his notebook, which first sets out in three lines a brief note of the kind of machine which he was called to inspect. It then refers to the three members of the defendant company's staff whom he saw, namely, Mr Webb, who was the safety officer and plant engineer, Mr Markey and Mr Butler. Then follows a more detailed report, which the police officer said that he wrote out afterwards when he returned to the police station. It is quite lengthy and detailed. I do not think it is necessary to read the whole of it, but I will read the material extract because this represents in effect what the evidence-in-chef of the police officer was. He said: "In company with Mr Charles John Webb, aged forty-three", and the address is given, "I inspected the machine at which the...
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