COURT OF APPEAL (CIVIL DIVISION)
ON APPEAL FROM YEOVIL COUNTY COURT
Strand, London, WC2A 2LL Friday 9th March 2001 |
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B e f o r e :
LORD JUSTICE KEENE
and
MR JUSTICE COLMAN
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Anthony Jewell Welsh |
Appellant |
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- and - |
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Mathew Clark Wholesale Limited |
Respondent |
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Smith Bernal Reporting Limited, 190 Fleet Street
London EC4A 2AG
Tel No: 020 7421 4040, Fax No: 020 7831 8838
Official Shorthand Writers to the Court)
Martin Porter (instructed by Porter Dodson Solicitors for the Appellant)
Patrick Blakesley (instructed by Tayntons Solicitors for the Respondent)
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Crown Copyright ©
MR JUSTICE COLMAN:
(1) once the GO Reflux had first started in 1991 the claimant became unsuited to heavy delivery work: he had a weak gastro-oesophageal sphincter.(2) Even if he had received help with the heavier kegs he would have suffered "quite severely" from reflux, although not as severely as he did.
(3) With the increase in his workload there was going to be an increase in his reflux problems whether or not it included heavy kegs of beer.
(4) By reason of his reflux he should now avoid heavy delivery work.
(5) This inability was not caused by the defendant's breaches of duty. This "would have occurred because he had a constitutional weakness and he was doing a heavy delivery job...... If his employers had not been in breach of their duty, he would still have been doing a lot of bending and heavy lifting - crates of bottles, lighter kegs and heavy kegs with assistance. He would still have been working long hours and under stress."
Before considering the evidence it is necessary to consider the structure of the issues which had to be determined at the trial.
4. "While acting in the course of employment and from 1992 onwards the Plaintiff was required to manually lift various heavy kegs of beer and/or gas cylinders up onto and off of the rear of his delivery truck, a height of about 4 feet from the ground. On or by 18th July 1996, and while doing so, the Plaintiff experienced indigestion and regurgitation at frequent intervals. Further, on or by the same date the Plaintiff suffered a hiatus hernia.5. The said symptoms and injury were caused by the negligence and/or breach of statutory duty of the Defendants, its servants or agents."
(a) "failing to avoid the need for the Plaintiff to undertake the handling of such kegs manually, when the same was a task which involved a risk to the Plaintiff being injured contrary to Regulation 4(1)(a) of the 1992 Regulations or at all;(b) failing to make a suitable and sufficient assessment of the manual handling operations to be undertaken by the Plaintiff or to take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury arising out of the said operation to the lowest reasonably practicable level contrary to Regulation 4(1)(b) of the 1992 Regulations or at all;
(c) employing the Plaintiff to load and unload kegs and/or cylinders so heavy as to be likely to cause him an injury;
(d) failing to provide any or any adequate manual or mechanical assistance for the purpose of loading and unloading such kegs and/or cylinders;
(e) failing adequately or at all to ensure that the Plaintiff used manual or mechanical assistance;
(f) failing to advise or instruct the Plaintiff properly, or at all, in the correct manner of lifting such kegs and/or cylinders;
(g) causing or permitting the Plaintiff to work unaided in the loading and unloading of such kegs and/or cylinders when it was unsafe to do so;
(h) failing to warn the Plaintiff of the dangers of working as aforesaid;
(i) in the premises failing to provide or maintain a safe and proper system of working or to instruct the Plaintiff to follow that system and/or failing to take proper care for the safety of the Plaintiff."
"The case proceeds on the basis that the Defendant admits the allegations of fault in paragraph 5 of the Particulars of Claim but denies that the Claimant has sustained any injury or loss as a result."
12. "If we were loading 9s or 11s, then we were expected to do so manually. If however 18s or 22s were required for delivery, then we either waited for a fork lift or sought help from another person in the warehouse. After approximately six months, the company did hire two more fork lifts but again these were generally in use in unloading other vehicles and were often not available when loading our lorries. We had no lifting training and were not provided with driver's mates to assist with the lifting involved.13. In addition to the problems with loading at the depot, if we delivered faulty goods to customers in error or if incorrect goods were despatched due to telesales/warehouse errors, then we were required to manually lift these goods from the customer's storage areas back on to the lorry. Often, we received no assistance with this task."
"Following that acquisition his work pattern changed and he was required to work in the Beer Department loading a lorry with barrels and kegs of beer which he then took to retail outlets where he unloaded the barrels often without assistance. He tells me that he was given no training or special equipment for the movement of heavy barrels and was required to lift on to a lorry on his own 9 and 11 gallon kegs of beer (he could not tell me the weight of such kegs but from simple calculation an 11 gallon keg of beer will weigh in excess of 120lb). He tells me that he was given no written procedures or instructions on how to lift these heavy weights. He noticed over the following six months that he was developing symptoms which came on after he had been lifting the heavier kegs of beer. He told me of symptoms of a burning retrosternal pain which was related to a dryness in the throat and hot flushes. The pains were made worse by bending and stooping and later on they also disturbed his sleep when they because severe on lying flat.
The Issue on this Appeal
It follows that the primary question on this appeal is whether it was open to the judge to conclude, as he did, that the claimant's continuing GO Reflux condition would have occurred in any event, due to the effect on his constitutional weakness of those incidents of his work which did not involve any breach of duty by the defendants, or, putting it the other way round, that those incidents of his work which did involve a breach of duty did not create a continuing condition which he would in any event have suffered.
"Well, isn't the reality of it that Mr Welsh is one of those who didn't get better. Isn't that just the long and the short of it? He was a susceptible individual, whose reflux is exacerbated, and he is one of those people who isn't going to get better. You are nodding. Does that mean that you agree with what I am suggesting?"
"The only qualifications I would make, as has been pointed out before, that quite a few of his symptoms after he gave up work were not those of reflux."
(i) the stocking by the defendant of crates of soft drinks in and after 1992;(ii) the longer working hours and significantly increased workload;
(iii) numerous references in the evidence to bending and stooping having brought on reflux;
(iv) delivering not only beer, but also spirits, presumably in bottles.
The Judgment
The judge's conclusion that (even if there had been no breach of duty, the claimant would still have been carrying out activities which would have caused him to suffer GO Reflux because his constitutional weakness was such that he was incapable of carrying out those duties without incurring quite severe reflux episodes) was clearly predicated on his assumption that the defendants' admission as to breach of duty extended only to the heavier beer kegs but not to the lighter ones and that accordingly there would be no breach of duty in requiring him to lift lighter beer kegs. In this assumption, he was clearly mistaken. As I have already indicated, the admission extended to all kegs.
(i) more severe and more frequent GO Reflux than he would have suffered if he had been required to carry out all the other activities except lifting such kegs; and(ii) that he developed a continuing condition of increased vulnerability to GO Reflux which he would not otherwise have developed and which prevented him from working as a delivery driver doing work which did not involve such heavy lifting.
Conclusion
Accordingly, the weight of the evidence supports the claimant's case that the defendants' admitted breaches of duty caused him significantly more severe and more prevalent symptoms while employed by them and that those breaches of duty further caused permanent impairment of his ability to work as a delivery driver.
(i) that the judge ought to have made an award for loss of past earnings and(ii) that the judge should not have reduced the travel and expenses claim from £240 to £80.
(iii) that the judge should have made an award for loss of future earnings.
(i) The claimant is entitled to a Smith v. Manchester award as part of his general damages;(ii) he is entitled to special damages for loss of past earnings and future earnings;
(iii) he is entitled to the full amount of his travel and medical expenses.
(1) Smith v. Manchester: £4,000, equivalent to 4 months wages.(2) Special damages expenses: £240
(3) Special damages: loss of past earnings taking into account what he has earned from substitute employment and from his additional work for the Fire Service, in which he has been able to continue following his dismissal by the defendants. The quantification of the difference in wages to the date of the trial hearing having been agreed at £8,170, by extrapolation, the quantification to the present day is £9,730. However, recovery of the full amount of the difference would assume that, but for the relevant injury, he could have done work equivalent in all respects to that required by the defendants and as well paid, even though he had a mildly symptomatic GO Reflux condition. That assumption cannot be correct. Had he undertaken such a job in the condition that he would have been in by 1997, but for the defendants' breaches of duty, he would not have been able to hold it without seriously and permanently damaging his health. Accordingly, it is necessary to make some reduction in the differential to reflect that limitation on his earning capacity. There is a complete lack of evidence on this point, but as a matter of common sense and to assist the parties by avoiding remission of the issue to the judge, I would reduce the differential by one-third as representing a very broad estimate of the effect on his earning capacity of his consitutional condition. In the result the figure for loss of past earnings is £6,487.
(3) Special damages: loss of future earnings. The claimant is now 40. Assuming that he works until aged 65, the Ogden Tables multiplier discounted at 3% would be 17.67. The multiplicand is agreed to be quantified at £1,560. Having regard to the considerations already explained with regard to the need further to discount the loss of earnings by one third, I would quantify loss of future earnings at £18,378.
General damages:
Pain and suffering £ 8,500
Smith v. Manchester £ 4,000 £12,500
Special damages:
Expenses £240
Loss of past earnings £ 6,487
Loss of future earnings £18,378 £25,105
Total £37,605