Scottish Court of Session Decisions

Lord Adam—There are two questions in this stated case. The first question is, whether the respondents were undertakers in the sense of the Workmen's Compensation Act 1897, and on that question I understand that there is no serious dispute in the sense in which the Sheriff considered the question, viz., that they were not at the time the occupiers of the factory in which the accident occurred. The second question is, whether the employment at which the appellant was injured was an employment within the meaning of the said Act. Now, the question whether an employment is an employment within the meaning of the Act means whether it is an employment in respect of which compensation will be given under the Act. The Sheriff-Substitute has not given his reasons for holding that the employment was not an employment within the meaning of the Act, but he must already have been of that opinion, for otherwise he would not have refused compensation. Accordingly, the question before us now is, whether the employment is one in respect to which this right to compensation is given. Now, these employments are specified by section 7, subsection 1, as follows—“A railway, factory, mine, quarry, or engineering work,” and the second sub-section gives the meaning which each of these words is to bear in the construction of the Act. The meaning of “engineering work” is there defined as “any work of construction or alteration or repair of a railroad, harbour, dock, canal, or sewer, and includes any other work for the construction, alteration, or repair of which machinery driven by steam, water, or other mechanical power is used.” Now, of course the work on which the appellant was employed does not fall under the employments enumerated in the first head of this sub-section, for he was employed in the construction of a hay-cutting machine, but the question appears to be whether the construction of such a machine does not fall within the phrase “other work,” which becomes an engineering work when in the construction of it machinery driven by mechanical power is used. Now, I think “work” is a word of most comprehensive meaning; in ordinary language we talk of a book or a picture, as well as of a railway, or a bridge, or a steam-engine, as a work, and I think “a haycutter” falls under it; nor do I think that the construction of a machine is completed although all the parts of which it is composed may be completed. If so, there is no doubt from the facts set forth by the Sheriff-Substitute, that the appellant was engaged in the construction, that is, the building up or erecting of that “work,” when he met with the accident; and the only remaining question is, whether machinery was used in the construction of that work. Now, as to that the Sheriff leaves us in no doubt, because he states not only that mechanical power was necessary and was being used, but that it was being used at the time of the accident, and was the cause of the accident. Accordingly, it appears to me that the appellant was engaged in a work to which the Act applies, and I therefore agree with your Lordship.

Lord M'Laren concurred.

Lord Kinnear—I agree. I think this haycutting machine was a work in the sense of opus manufactum; that in its construction machinery was used driven by electrical power, and that therefore it falls within the definition of engineering work in the Workmen's Compensation Act. I am not surprised, however, that the attention of the Sheriff—Substitute was not directed to this view of the case, because in ordinary language an engineering work might probably be supposed to mean a more extensive structure than a hay-cutting machine. But that is not a sufficient reason for excluding from such a comprehensive term as “work” one very legitimate signification, nor for refusing effect to the statutory definition of the specific kinds of work which it means to describe as an “engineering” work. I am not moved by the argument that if this is the meaning to be attached to the term “work,” it is different from its meaning in the earlier part of the clause, where it seems to mean an operation rather than a product of labour. But the use of one word in two different senses in the same passage is a method which is not confined to Acts of Parliament. It would be easy to find illustrations both in modern and classical writers. It seems to me, therefore, a mistake in the interpretation of written language to insist on a perfectly uniform and unvarying consistency in the use of particular words, because that is to fail to take account of the transition from one aspect of a complex idea to another. But however that may be, we ought, in my opinion, to construe this statute in a liberal spirit, and we must not sacrifice the substantial intention of this clause to an over-minute analysis of specific words.