Scottish Court of Session Decisions

In a case stated for appeal under the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, at the instance of the Caledonian Railway Company, in a claim against them by Daniel Breslin, horse-shoer, 26 North Street, Glasgow, the Sheriff-Substitute ( Balfour) stated the following facts as admitted or proved:— “(1) That the respondent was employed as a blacksmith and horse-shoer with the appellants at their General Terminus Station, Paisley Road, Glasgow.

(2) That on 19th May 1899, while the respondent was, in the course of his employment, shoeing a horse belonging to the appellants, the horse kicked him and caused serious injuries, which resulted in a rupture.

(3) That in May 1898 the respondent, while in the employment of the appellants, met with an accident from a horse, from the consequence of which he contracted kidney disease and attended the infirmary for three or four weeks, but that he returned to his work with the appellants in June 1898, and from that date to 19th May 1899 he never missed a day at his work.

(4) That the rupture caused to the respondent by the accident on 19th May 1898 incapacitates him from carrying on his work as a horse-shoer, and at present he is not in a fit condition to resume such work.

(5) That the accident to the respondent on 19th May 1899 took place in a smithy situated in a yard within the appellants' premises at the General Terminus, Paisley Road, Glasgow, and that the premises in question are shown on the Ordnance Survey map.

(6) That the area within the lines marked blue on said map, and the buildings and railway lines and sheds thereon, are the property of the appellants, and are used by them in the prosecution of their business.

(7) That the whole block of buildings, of which the smithy is a portion, is within the said station, and the wall of the stable and the gate of entrance are 37 feet distant from the actual line of railway, as shown on sketch No. 3 of process.

(8) That the yard in which the said smithy is situated is entered from the Paisley Road by a lane, and at the end of the lane there are two gates, one giving entrance to the general yard, and the other giving entrance to the right into the yard in which the said smithy is situated, and that at a distance of about 200 feet from the general gate there is a large notice posted up—‘Caledonian Railway—General Terminus Station.’

(9) That said yard also communicates with the general yard by a large gate to the north, and is separated from the general yard by a sleeper fence, and at another part by the walls of the stables, and that the separation from the general yard was made for the convenience of the appellants' business, in order to keep the shipping traffic out of the stable yard.

10) That at the said General Terminus there are 74 horses kept by and belonging to the appellants, some of which are used in their lorries and carts, others in drawing railway trucks on the appellants' lines of railway, and a large number of them are used generally about said station, and that the respondent was in the habit of shoeing all these horses.

(11) That the average weekly wage earned by the respondent while in the employment of the appellants from June 1898 was 36s.”

In these circumstances the Sheriff-Substitute found (1) that Breslin was employed by the appellants on or in or about their railway; and (2) that the accident in question arose out of and in the course of his employment with them.

The Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, section 7, enacts as follows—“This Act shall apply only to employment by the undertakers, as hereinafter defined, on or in or about,” inter alia, “a railway; (2) In this Act ‘railway’ means the railway of any railway company to which the Regulation of Railways Act 1873 applies, and includes a light railway made under the Light Railways Act 1896; and ‘railway’ and ‘railway company’ have the same meaning as in the said Acts of 1873 and 1896.”

By the Regulation of Railways Act 1873 it is provided (section 3), “The term ‘railway’ includes every station, siding, wharf, or dock of or belonging to such railway, and used for the purposes of public traffic.”

The question of law for the opinion of the Court was as follows:—“ Whether, in view of the facts proved, the respondent having been engaged shoeing the appellants' horses used in connection with and for the purposes of the railway in a smithy situated in a yard

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within the appellants' promises at the General Terminus, Paisley Road, Glasgow, was employed on or in or about a railway in the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897?”

Argued for the appellants—The respondent was not injured on or in or about a railway within the restricted meaning of that word given to it by the definition in the Regulation of Railways Act 1873 (quoted supra). That definition limited the word railway to those parts of the undertaking which were actually used for “purposes of public traffic,” not those incidental offices such as the stable here, which might no doubt facilitate traffic but were not actually used for it— Milner v. Great Northern Railway Company [1900], 1 Q.B. 795. There a barmaid was injured by an accident in the refreshment room of a station, and it was held that the Act did not apply because the refreshment room was not a part of the railway used for the purposes of public traffic. That case was exactly in point.

Argued for the respondent—The respondent was entitled to compensation. When the accident occurred he was engaged in shoeing a horse which was used for the purpose of drawing a lorry or hauling trucks to facilitate the railway traffic, and the smithy where he was working was a part of the station premises. That was employment “on or in or about a railway” within the meaning of section 7 of the Act — Devine v. Caledonian Railway Company, July 11, 1899, 1 F. 1105. The definition in section 3 of the Regulation of Railways Act 1873 was not meant to be an exhaustive or exclusive definition of a railway—if it were so read it would exclude the line—but to include under a word of well-known import certain things not usually supposed to fall within it. The case of Milner, cit. supra, was not in point. A refreshment room might quite well be held not to be used for purposes of public traffic, because the traffic could go on all the same if it were closed, but if the horses which were used to haul trucks were not shod the public traffic would be disorganised.