Police Authority for Huddersfield v Watson
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 1947 |
| Date | 1947 |
| Court | King's Bench Division |
Pension - Police constable - Determination of services on account of ill-health - Duodenal ulcer - Incapacity due to conditions of service - Claim to special pension - Whether disease “an injury received in the execution of his duty” - Previous decision of Divisional Court binding on that court -
The Divisional Court is bound by its own previous decision in the same way and subject to the same exceptions as the Court of Appeal.
APPEAL from quarter sessions.
The respondent, William John Watson, a constable in the Huddersfield county borough police force, was in 1946 called on to resign on account of ill-health. He was suffering from a duodenal ulcer which, he alleged, was the result of the conditions of his police services before and during the early years of the war. His claim to a special pension under s. 2, sub-s. 1 (c) of the Police Pensions Act, 1921F1 was rejected by the Police Authority, but on appeal to quarter sessions the recorder allowed the appeal, holding that he was bound by the decision of the Divisional Court in Garvin v. Police Authority for City of LondonF2.
The Police Authority appealed.
Streatfeild K.C. and G. W. Wrangham for the appellants. In fact what the learned recorder has found is that this was an accidental injury within the meaning of the Police Pensions Act, although it could not be an accidental injury, for instance, under the Workmen's Compensation Acts. It is submitted that “injury” in this Act means an injury which must be related to some event. Duodenal ulcer is something quite different. It is a disease which is peculiar to people who are predisposed to suffer from it and it is impossible to say there is any moment of time when there is a lesion or formation of an ulcer. In ordinary language a person does not “receive” a disease as a person receives an injury. The statute where it means disease uses the word “disease” and where it means injury it uses the wold “injury.” In its framework the Act indicates that “injury” is used in contradistinction to “disease.” Before Garvin v. Police Authority for City of LondonF2 was decided every Police Authority regarded “injury” as a traumatic event.
[LORD GODDARD C.J. Are you submitting that this court is not bound by the decision in Garvin's caseF2?]
When, as in this case, there is no means of appealing to a court of error, there is not the same obligation to follow the decision of another court of co-ordinate jurisdiction: see per Pollock C.B. in Taylor v. BurgessF3. In Young v. Bristol Aeroplane Co., Ld.F4 the Court of Appeal was not the final tribunal. That case went to the House of LordsF5. Humphreys J. in Garvin's caseF2 was confusing the meaning of “accident” in the Workmen's Compensation Acts with the meaning of “injury” in the Police Pensions Act. What he overlooked was that even though you may not have to prove accident you have still to show it was an injury within the meaning of s. 2. A disease cannot be an injury under s. 2 unless it be that type of disease which results from an injury.
Hinchcliffe K.C. for respondent, was not called on.
LORD GODDARD C.J. stated the facts and continued: It is not necessary for me to go in detail into the reasons why the learned recorder came to his decision. His findings of fact are not attacked in any way, and therefore we have it that the officer was incapacitated for the performance of his duty by infirmity of body, and the infirmity of body was due to the exceptional character of his police service. The question that arises is whether it can be said that a duodenal ulcer is an “injury received in the execution of his duty without his own default,” and I may say at once that no question about the man's default arises. The matter was evidently very fully argued before the learned recorder, who gave a full and careful judgment, and although he indicated in the judgment that for many reasons he would be inclined to accept — that is what I gather from his judgment — the arguments of Mr. Wrangham, who then argued the case for the Police Authority, he held that he was bound by the decision of this Court in Garvin v. Police Authority for City of LondonF6, and he accordingly allowed the appeal. Before us, Mr. Streatfeild, on behalf of the Police Authority, has challenged the correctness of the decision in Garvin's...
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