Nancollas v Insurance Officer; Ball v Insurance Officer [1985]
- Reported: [1985] 1 ALL E.R. 833, CA
- Year: 1985
- Court: Court of Appeal
FACTS:
This was the appeal from two separate cases, first, Nancollas v Insurance Officer and, Secondly, Ball v Insurance Officer.
Nancollas v Insurance Officer Facts
Mr Nancollas was a senior disablement resettlement officer employed by the Department of Employment. His employment involved, in addition to work at his main base office at Worthing, calling at other job centres and paying domiciliary visits to disabled persons in the area (which covered Sussex and Surrey and extended as far as Aldershot). He does not work fixed hours but adjusts them to the duties that he has to perform. On 30 October 1980 his work took him to Guildford, where he attended a case conference about a particular disabled person. Arrangements were made that the Claimant should interview him at the Aldershot employment office on the following day. He returned home that evening with or without calling back at his Worthing office. On the following morning he started out for car for Aldershot… He did not get here, because at a roundabout, on route to Aldershot, his stationary car was struck in the rear by a following vehicle. He sustained injuries to his head and neck
Ball v Insurance Officer Facts
Mr Ball was a police officer. He lived at Wakefield and normally worked at Wakefield police station. He was also a sailing instructor and, in the course of his duties, instructed police cadets on Embsay reservoir, which is 40 miles from Wakefield. When he was detailed to instruct police cadets, he used to travel to Embsay using a motor cycle which was his own property. This method of transport was approved by his superior officers and he was paid a mileage allowance. He was required to telephone his station in the morning before leaving for Embsay, in order to find out whether his orders had been changed. His employment called for the performance of an agreed number of hours’ work each week and time for this purpose began to run when he telephoned to the police station and continued throughout the journey to Embsay. He was involved in an accident on his way back from Embsay.
Both cases were involved in road accidents and both claimed industrial injury benefits under section 50 (1) of the Social Security Act 1975, on the basis that they were employed earners who had suffered personal injury by accident arising “out of and in the course of “their respective employments. In both cases the accidents were found to be outside the course of their employment.
Both cases were heard in the Court of Appeal, Civil Division before Sir John Donaldson MR, Dillion LJ and Mustill J.
HELD:-
Despite reviewing a number of authorities including Vandyke v Fender [1970] 2 All ER 335, St Helens Colliery Co Ltd v Hewitson [1924] AC 59 and Weaver v Tredegar Iron and Coal Co Ltd [1940] 3 All ER 157 Sir John Donaldson stated that none of the authorities laid down or purported to lay down a conclusive test which will bind the courts. They do, however, require the court to have regard to and to weigh in the balance every factor which can be said in any way to point towards or away from a finding that the Claimant was in the course of his employment. Sir Donaldson followed this approach addressing each factor in coming to his judgement.
The roles of the adjudicating officer and, on appeal, the local tribunal and the commissioner
None of these decision- takers can act as if the claim with which he is concerned is the first such claim under the 1975 Act. They must have regard to previous decisions, if only in order to do justice between claimants and to provide some consistency on the decision. This is particularly true of the function of the adjudicating officer, who must reach the majority of his decisions on the basis of guidelines derived from his knowledge of previous decisions. But they are only guidelines. In the end his decisions must stand or fall on the correctness of his appreciation for the particular facts and of their interrelation and, having weighed those facts, the correctness of his conclusion, which is very largely one of fact, that the claimant was or was not in the course of his employment.
The role of the courts
The jurisdiction of the court is confined to questions of law arising out of the decision. As such the court has to adopt the approach approved in Edwards (Inspector of Taxes) v Bairstow [1955] 3 All ER 48 intervening only if it is clear that there has been a self-misdirection by the commissioner or if the only reasonable conclusion on the facts found is inconsistent with that decision
Mr Nancollas’ claim
Sir John Donaldson held that the reasoning of the justices was misread and misapplied. Their starting point was the judgement of Lord Denning MR in Vandyke coupled with the reference to the St Helens Colliery and Weaver cases. Lord Denning stated that;
“the journey to and from work is not a journey in the course of employment unless the claimant is fulfilling a duty to his employer in undertaking it at the time or in the manner in which he is doing so”
Sir Donaldson distinguished these cases. In the above cases all the employees had one regular place of work, wither a mine or a factory, and the courts proceeded on the basis that the journeys were between home and work. In Mr Nancollas’ case, the issue was different. He had a regular place in his Worthing Office, but on the day in question he was going somewhere else for the purposes of his work. The issue was whether the journey was not only in the course of, but part of, his work: whether at the material time the road was his work place. More specifically, it was whether Mr Nancollas was employed, inter alia, to drive to places in his area at which disabled persons could be interviewed or whether he had a number of work places which he had to reach in order to work at them.
Master of the Rolls Sir John Donaldson held on the current state of the authorities, self-direction was not difficult and was satisfied that there was misdirection in this case. He found that when Mr Nancollas met with his accident he was in the course of his employment.
Mr Ball’s claim
Sir John disagreed immediately with the justices’ decision that the question at issue was whether on the particular journey he was travelling in the performance of a duty, or whether the journey was incidental to the performance of that duty and not merely preparatory to the performance of it. Instead the question was whether the particular journey was performed in the course of Mr Ball’s employment.
He specifically referred to the following statement from the justices;
“[There are] circumstances in which a person travelling to or from work is to be regarded as being on a journey in the performance of or incidental to the performance of a duty. Among such factors present in this case are the fact that the journey is undertaken in working hours, that it cost is borne by the employer, that the claimant is at the time carrying with him tools or papers to be used by him in the performance of his duties or that the journey is a long one. It is also clear that it not sufficient that the journey is one that would have been taken at all but for the employment.”
Sir John Donaldson stated that this formulation invites consideration of individual factors as being decisive of the issue and of other individual factors as not being of themselves decisive. Factors can have very different weights, but it is doubtful if any factor can be so decisive that it is incapable of being outweighed by others. Furthermore, stressing a consideration of the factors individually, rather in tin the aggregate, invites a mental discarding of non-decisive factors, whereas they all play their part in the final evaluation.
Sir John Donaldson was also unable to accept the conclusion of the justices that since there was nothing in the case that differentiates it from other cases relating to accidents on journeys to and from work, so as to bring the claimant within the course of his employment. As with Mr Nancollas’ claim, the principal issue was whether this was a journey to work or whether the journey was itself part of his work.
He concluded that since Mr Ball reported in by telephone, and the fact that previous instructions to go to Embsay were then confirmed did not make undertaking the journey any less one which was part of, and thus necessarily undertaken in the course of, his employment. In riding his motor cycle to Embsay Mr Ball was not going to work. That was part of his work. The justices had been misdirected and that the only decision consistent with the facts was that at the time of the accident the claimant was in the course of his employment.
General
Sir John Donaldson believed it important, before concluding, to state that we cannot overemphasis the importance of looking at the factual picture as a whole and rejecting any approach based on the fallacious concept that any one factor is conclusive. The addition or subtraction of one factor in a given situation may well tip the balance, in another, the addition or subtraction of the same factor may well make no difference. We appreciate that it would assist if we could lay down rules or even guidelines. However, there are no rules, other than that which is contained in the statute; if, looking at the whole factual picture, the claimant suffered the accident whilst in the course of his employment he is eligible for benefit, assuming all other conditions are satisified.
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