THE

Workmen's Compensation Act

WHAT IT MEANS, AND HOW TO MAKE USE OF IT.

WITH THE TEXT OF THE PRINCIPAL ACT, THE EXTENSION ACT OF 1900, AND MOST OF THE SCHEDULES.

NEW EDITION, CONTAINING THE LATEST LEGAL INTERPRETATIONS. [ONE HUNDRED AND SIXTY-FOURTH THOUSAND.]

PUBLISHED AND SOLD BY

THE FABIAN

FABIAN SOCIETY.

PRICE ONE PENNY.

LONDON:

THE FABIAN SOCIETY, 3 CLEMENT'S INN, STRAND, W.C.

JUNE, 1903.

1897 AND 1900.

THE WORKMEN'S COMPENSATION ACT, 1897, is now the most important law about accidents to workmen. This Tract is written to explain it; if any part is not clear to any reader, or any point is omitted on which he wants information, he can write to the Secretary of the Fabian Society, 3, Clement's Inn, Strand, London, W.C., who will send him a full and clear answer free of charge.

The Old "Common" Law.

We must first explain two other older laws, still in force, by which an injured workman can sometimes recover damages.

Before the first day of January, 1881, if a workman were injured by an accident when working, he could only bring an action at law against his master

(i) where the master employed a servant, knowing that the servant was incompetent to do the work; or

(ii) where a master used bad machinery or plant which he knew was unsafe and dangerous.

But if the master proved (i) that the workman knew the machinery or plant was unsafe, or (ii) that the workman was partly to blame for the accident, the workman could not win his action.

The workman could not at this time, therefore, recover compensation for injuries caused by a fellow servant, unless he proved that the employer knew the fellow servant to be incompetent. This is called the Doctrine of Common Employment, and as foremen were generally held to be fellow servants, it was very seldom that a workman could get any compensation for his injuries. This was a flagrant injustice, for which a remedy was badly needed.

Employers' Liability Act, 1880.

In 1880, therefore, Parliament passed the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, which makes an employer liable to pay damages to a workman if he be injured, or to his relatives if he be killed,

(i) by some defect in the machinery or plant which ought to have been put right by the master or his foreman ;

(ii) by the carelessness of a foreman ;

(iii) through obeying an order which caused the injury;

(iv) through a fellow workman obeying a rule or order of his master, or

(v) by the carelessness of a man in charge of any engine, points, or signal on a railway.

But the master can escape liability by proving that the workman injured knew the danger of the bad machinery, or was partly to blame for the accident. And if a master dies before the case is decided in the County Court, the workman cannot obtain any damages at all.

It must be remembered that the Employers' Liability Act, 1880, is not repealed, and it is still open to a workman or his relatives to bring an action under it.

The Workmen's Compensation Act, 1897.

Trades Included.-The Act applies to all men or women, whether manual laborers or not, who are employed in certain places. Clerks and apprentices are included. The word "workman" will be used in this Tract, in order to save space, to mean also workwoman and workgirl. The following is a list of the places to which the Act applies:

(1) A railway, including a light railway.

(2) A factory, which includes the following places :

Print works, bleaching and dyeing works, earthenware or china works, lucifer match works, percussion cap works, cartridge works, paper staining works, fustian cutting works, blast furnaces, copper mills, iron mills, iron, copper and brass foundries where more than five persons work, metal and indiarubber works, paper mills, glass works, tobacco factories, printing works, bookbinding works, flax scutch mills, and electrical stations.

Also hat works, rope works, bakehouses, lace warehouses, shipbuilding yards, quarries, pit banks, dry cleaning, carpet beating, and bottle-washing works, if steam, water, or other mechanical power is used in aid of the manufacturing process carried on there.

Any premises wherein steam, water, or other mechanical power is used to move or work any machinery employed in preparing, manufacturing, or finishing cotton, wool, hair, silk, flax, hemp, jute, tow, china-grass, cocoanut fibre, or other like material, or any fabric made thereof.

Any premises wherein steam, water, or other mechanical power is used in aid of the manufacturing process carried on there, for the making, altering, repairing, ornamenting, finishing, or adapting for sale of any article.

Every laundry worked by steam, water, or other mechanical

power.

All docks, wharves, quays, and warehouses; and all machinery and plant used in the process of loading or unloading or coaling any ship in any dock, harbor, or canal.

A workman working on a ship inside a dock (whether a wet or dry dock) is considered as working on or in or about the dock. The same is true of a quay or warehouse.

A ship being loaded or unloaded by its own machinery is within the Act, although not discharging on to a dock, but only into lighters alongside, both being some distance from the quay-side.

(3) A mine, which includes coal mines and every other mine used for working minerals.

(4) A quarry, which includes every place (not a mine) in which persons work in getting slate, stone, coprolites, or other minerals, provided it is more than twenty feet deep.

(5) Engineering work, which means any work of construction, alteration, or repair of a railroad, harbor, dock, canal, or sewer, and includes any other work for the construction, alteration, or repair of which machinery driven by steam, water or other mechanical power is used.

(6) Work on buildings of the following three classes:

(i) Any building over thirty feet high, which is either (a) being constructed or repaired by means of a scaffolding; or (b) being demolished, even when scaffolding is not used. The building must be actually at least thirty feet high at the time of the accident, the height being measured from the top of the "footings," that is, apparently from the level of the ground in the basement to the top of the roof, or of the walls, where the building is not complete.

The accident need not be caused by the scaffolding. All that is necessary is a building thirty feet high, which is being constructed or repaired by means of scaffolding. Painting such a building is within the Act. And though the brick-work may be finished and the building in actual use, yet it is being "constructed" until the scaffolding is removed. The scaffolding need not be thirty feet high, and may be outside or inside the house. What constitutes "scaffolding" depends practically on the opinion of the arbitrator or judge.

(ii) Any building on which machinery driven by steam, water or other mechanical power is being used for the purpose of the construction, repair, or demolition of that building; and

(iii) Any premises on which machinery worked by steam, water, or other mechanical power is temporarily used for the purpose of the construction of a building, or any structural work in connection with a building.

(7) By the Act of 1900, persons mainly employed in agriculture by an employer who habitually employs one or more men are included in the Act of 1897, and accidents to them in the course of their employment, wherever they happen, come under the Compensation Act. Agriculture includes care of gardens and woods, and the tending of life stock.

As a general rule, the following important trades do not come under the Acts: (i) Seamen and fishermen; (ii) domestic servants; (iii) workshop operatives; (iv) shop assistants; (v) persons engaged in transport services, and in tending horses; (vi) the army and navy.

Accidents Included.-When a workman is injured or killed by an accident whilst at work, his employer must pay compensation if the workman is prevented from earning full wages for more than two weeks, or, if he is killed, to those whom he either entirely or partially supported. The accident must happen on, or close to, the employer's place of business. Compensation is to be paid although the accident is caused by the workman himself or by his fellow workmen. Every accident, however caused, provided its effects last more than a fortnight, comes under the Acts, excepting

only when caused by the workman's own "serious and wilful misconduct."

It must be remembered that a workman can still, if injured by the negligence of the employer himself, or of a foreman, bring an action under the Employers' Liability Act, or under the Common Law.

The cases in which a workman will, with some degree of certainty, obtain a larger sum under the old than he will get under the new law, are few. But, if he does bring an action, either under the Act of 1880, or at Common Law, and the judge who decides the case decides that the employer is only liable under the Compensation Act, the workman must ask the judge to fix the amount which the employer must pay, and so save further costs.

The following rules determine whether compensation can be claimed :

(i) It is not to be paid to a workman who causes the accident by his "serious and wilful misconduct." But though the workman who causes such an accident cannot himself get compensation, his fellowservants who are injured at the same time can get it.

(ii) It is only payable for those accidents which either kill a workman or so injure him that he is unable to earn full wages for more than two weeks.

(iii) It is only to be paid for accidents which happen at or close to the employer's place of business. There is no difficulty in saying whether the accident occurred "on or in" a certain place. But the Act also uses the word "about." The intention of Parliament seems to have been that compensation should only be paid for accidents which either occur on or in the employer's place of business, or so near to it as to be practically the same thing.

Thus, a carter employed at timber works to which the Act applied, whilst loading his employer's cart was killed by a piece of timber tilting and knocking him off the cart. The cart was, at the time of the accident, standing in the street near to the entrance of the works. The Court of Appeal therefore said that the carter's widow was entitled to compensation. But if a carter employed, for example, by a railway company, is injured by an accident which happens when he is on his rounds, collecting goods to be taken to the station, compensation cannot be obtained.

This rule does not apply to agricultural labor.

(iv) Compensation is only to be paid for an accident which happens when the workman is doing his proper work.

For example, a railway ticket collector, after taking the tickets, got on to the foot-board whilst a train was in motion, in order to speak to a young woman of his acquaintance. He slipped and was killed. The Court of Appeal said his relatives were not entitled to compensation, because he was not doing his work at the time of the accident. He had finished taking the tickets, which it was his duty to take, and got on to the train for his own pleasure.

Another case, showing what is meant by an "accident arising out of and in the course of his employment," can be given. Á boy was employed in pottery works to make balls of clay and hand them to a woman who worked at a moulding machine. He also had to take the moulded pottery away. But he was not employed to do anything to the machine, and was, in fact, forbidden to touch it, it being the foreman's duty to clean it. Whilst the woman had gone to fetch some clay, the boy tried to clean the machine and was injured. The Court of Appeal said he was not entitled to compensation, because the injury was caused not by an accident which arose in the course of his employment, but whi'st he was doing something which he was not engaged, and actually forbidden, to do.