Rosie v Mackay
| Jurisdiction | England & Wales |
| Judgment Date | 13 November 1911 |
| Docket Number | No. 2. |
| Date | 13 November 1911 |
| Court | House of Lords |
Ld. Chancellor (Loreburn), Ld. Atkinson, Lord Gorell, Lord Shaw of Dunfermline.
Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 (6 Edw. VII. cap. 58), sec. 16—Accident happening before commencement of Act—Application of Act—Right of appeal to House of Lords—‘Proceedings consequential’on medical reference.
The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 (which provides for an appeal to the House of Lords that did not exist under the Act of 1897), enacts, sec.16, that the Act shall not apply to cases where the accident happened before its commencement, ‘except so far as it relates to references to medical referees and proceedings consequential thereon.’
In an arbitration with regard to an accident which had happened before the commencement of the Act of 1906, the arbitrator made a remit, under paragraph (15) of the Second Schedule to that Act, to a medical referee to examine and report, and thereafter pronounced an interlocutor which was appealed to the Court of Session.
An appeal having been taken from the judgment of the Court of Session to the House of Lords,held that the judgment of the Court of Session was not a ‘proceeding consequential’ on the medical reference and accordingly that the provisions of the Act of 1897, and not those of the Act of 1906, applied, and excluded the appeal.
(In the Court of Session, June 14,1910—1910 S. C. 714.)
The claimant, Alexander Mackay, appealed in forma pauperis to the House of Lords. An objection to the competency of the appeal was taken by the respondent, George Rosie, and the question was reserved by the Appeal Committee for argument before the House of Lords.
The question was argued before the House on 13th November 1911.
Argued for the respondent—The appeal was incompetent. The accident happened before, the commencement of the Act of 1906, and accordingly the arbitration fell to be regulated by the Act of 1897 (under which, admittedly, there was no appeal), except as regarded ‘references to medical referees, and proceedings consequential thereon,’ to which the Act of 1906 was applied by section 16 thereof. Here there had been no ‘reference’ in the sense of section 16. The only ‘reference’ in the purview of that section was the reference provided for in paragraph (15) of the First Schedule, which was a new, and in a sense an independent, procedure introduced by the Act of 1906. Section 16 did not apply to remits under paragraph (15) of the Second Schedule (the paragraph under which the Sheriff...
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