OF THE MIDDLE TEMPLE AND THE SOUTH WALES CIRCUIT, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, 66 AND ANTON BERTRAM, OF LINCOLN'S INN AND THE SOUTH WALES CIRCUIT, BARRISTER-AT-LAW, SECOND EDITION. LONDON: WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, 7, FLEET STREET. 1902. INTRODUCTION. SINCE the last edition of this book was published, the Workmen's Compensation Act has continued to present fresh problems for the Court of Appeal to elucidate. Four important cases have been carried to the House of Lords, with the result that a great part of the existing law on the subject has been revolutionised. All the chief sections of the Act have thus become covered with a thick incrustation of judicial decisions, and unless the words of the sections and the decision upon them are read together, no proper conception of the meaning of the statute can be obtained. Probably no Act of Parliament in modern time has been so richly and so rapidly adorned with decisions designed to explain its singularly drawn provisions, and certainly no Act has ever received such a unanimous chorus of judicial objurgation. The following are some of the more trenchant expressions of a feeling which seems to be very generally entertained by those who have to interpret the Act. "The difficulty really arises from this, that the draughtsman has apparently not worked out the scheme which he had in his head, and it looks very much as if the Act had really been framed from notes of legislative intention, and had not been expanded into the proper language. Cases which have arisen, and cases which are likely to arise, appear not to have been contemplated, but apparently were supposed to be covered by the general language used in the Act" (per LORD DAVEY: Lysons v. Knowles, [1901] A. C. 95). . "In endeavouring to arrive at a satisfactory interpretation. . we labour under considerable difficulty. The whole statute is full of incongruities. In it so many things are said which could not have been meant, and so many things which must have been meant are left unsaid, that one often has great hesitation in even framing a conjecture as to what may have been the views and intentions of its framers" (per LORD BRAMPTON: Hoddinott v. Newton, Chambers & Co., [1901] A. C. 63). b |
