EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXXV, Issue 11558, 11 June 1900, Page 3

EMPLOYERS' LIABILITY

A TEST CASE. [by tbukobaph j Wellington, Sunday. William Eraser M'Leod, formerly a locomotive driver in the employ of the Wellington-Manawatu Railway Company, is suing the company for .£2OOO damages, alleged to have been caused by a piece of material falling from the roof of a tunnel, and injuring him to the extent that the loss of the sight of one eye is threatening. The case is to be heard on Wednesday, but certain law points of interest were argued before the chief Justice. The question which arises is substantially whether the common law remedy by a servant against his master for injury sustained still subsists, or is superseded by the statutory remedy conferred by the Employers' liability Act of 1882. For the defence it was contended that the Employers' Liability Act was the code which was intended to exclusively regulate the rights of servants and liabilities of employers for injuries received by their servants, and if a servant could brin^ himself within the provisions of that Act, his common law remedy was gone. If, however, the Court should think that the common law liability still subsisted, then it ought to order that the common law cause of action should be separated from, and tried separately from the, cause of action ■ under the Employers' Liability Act. His Honor held that on the authority of text book writers and the deoisions of the Courts of England and Scotland, a workman had not lost his common law right of action against his master. The Employers' Liability Act was not intended to supersede the remedies which workmen had against a master, but simply to destroy certain defences the master formerly had. Ab to the question of separating the cause of action on the ground' that they could not be conveniently joined together, his Honor was of opinion that nothing had been shown why they should be separated.