Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Now, on the first of the findings which I have read, it would seem that it was no part of the duty for which Goslan was engaged, to assist in carrying heavy articles to the weighing machine. On the other hand, I think we may take it as a matter of common knowledge that when heavy articles are to be carried from place to place in a manufacturing establishment, it may be necessary that the men who take them off the machines should have some extra assistance to lift the load from one apartment or place to another, and in such cases, as you do not have a reserve of idle men kept on the premises, some one whose duties lie nearest to those of the men who are bound to do the work, would naturally be called in to help them. I assume, in the absence of any statement to the contrary, that additional assistance, at least to the extent of one person, was needed for carrying this brass frame to the weighing machine, and that being so, it seems to me that the man who had charge of the weighing-machine, and to whom the frame was to be carried to perform the next operation upon it, was the most likely person and the most suitable person to apply to in order to give assistance. Now, I cannot see that in giving the assistance which Goslan did he was in any way travelling beyond the scope of his employment, or that he can be represented in any reasonable sense as going outside the scope of his employment. I think, on the contrary, he was in the course of his employment, because he was assisting his neighbours to do something that was necessary to enable him to weigh the frame.

It has often been said in this class of cases that it is a material consideration whether the man whose action is in question had intervened for the purpose of promoting his employer's interests or merely to relieve a fellow workman. In one of the cases quoted to us ( Menzies v. M'Quibban, 1900, 2 F. 732) I see I am reported to have said—“We are familiar with the principle of common employment as used in the limitation of claims, and this principle may also be invoked to aid the interpretation of the statute, because impliedly each workman, besides having to perform the special work for which he is hired, owes something to the community of fellow-workers, and must be helpful according to his experience where the necessity arises.” It was a need of intervention in that case, which was the case of a person assisting an engineman to put a belt on a pulley. Now, whether you describe the occurrence as a case of necessity as I have done in this passage—perhaps necessity is not the most appropriate word — or whether you call it an emergency or a proper occasion, is not of much consequence except for accuracy of definition, because in each case we have to consider, apart from definition, whether the thing done was a reasonable extension of the man's ordinary duties, and such as a master or his overseer might reasonably have required the man in question to perform. I think if this weighing clerk had refused to give a hand in lifting articles which were to be weighed, he would not only have been doing a disobliging act, but if this came to the knowledge of his immediate superior he might perhaps have been classed amongst people who were troublesome, and would have to be got rid of at the first opportunity. But it is not necessary to go so far as that, because I am content to support the claim of compensation on the ground that what was done, although beyond what the deceased was specially hired to perform, was still within the scope of his employment, and was a reasonable act done in the furtherance of the employers' interests. I therefore suggest to your Lordships that we should remit this case to the Sheriff to assess the compensation.

Lord Kinnear—I am of the same opinion. I see no reason for holding that the deceased man had gone outside the course of his employment, and in so doing had exposed himself to the risk of accident, which he would have avoided by doing his duty. Where two or more workmen are employed in the conduct of one operation, although they have different parts to perform, it cannot be said that one of them goes outside his employment merely because he lends a hand to the others who are doing what is necessary for the work. It seems impossible to infer from what appears in the case that the deceased did anything that a reasonably helpful man would not have done in the circumstances in furthering his master's business in the operation in which he was engaged.

The ground for rejecting this claim comes to a very narrow point. If I understand counsel for the employers aright, his position was that if an emergency had arisen which called for the intervention of the workman, the accident would have been within the scope of the Act, but that the principle which in that case would have entitled him to compensation is inapplicable if he intervenes on a reasonable occasion for giving his assistance. I cannot say that I see any sufficient ground for that distinction. It seems a narrow understanding of the contract of employment to say that he went beyond his duty in giving a helping hand to the others.

I may add that I assent to the doctrine which we are told was laid down by the English Courts in the case of Losh v. Evans & Company, Limited, 1902, 19 T.L.R. 142, that where the master has divided the work into certain spheres, and one man steps out of his own class and undertakes to do work which he was not fit for and which was not entrusted to him—as where an unskilled labourer undertakes to do the work of a skilled workman—he does not satisfy the conditions of the first section of

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