Scobie v KD Welding Co Pty Ltd [1959] HCA 65

High Court of Australia Dixon C.J. McTiernan. Fullagar, Menzies and Windeyer JJ. Scobie v KD Welding Co Pty Ltd [1959] HCA 65

ORDER Scobie v. K. D. Welding Company Proprietary Limited. Appeal dismissed with costs. Tallar v. K. D. Welding Company Proprietary Limited. Appeal dismissed with costs.

Cur. adv. vult.

The following written judgments were delivered:—

1959, Dec. 4 Dixon C.J.

These are two appeals which we heard together because they arose out of the same facts and are governed by the same considerations. The appellants were injured in one accident. They were respectively the rider and the pillion rider upon a motor cycle. The accident gave rise to claims for workers' compensation against the respondent company by which they were both employed. The accident occurred on 23rd April 1954 in Fields Road, Ingleburn. They were both riding home from work when the motor cycle collided with a pedestrian. In consequence of the collision they were thrown upon the roadway and injured. The claims of the two men were of course based upon the provisions contained in s. 7 (1) (b) of the Workers' Compensation Act 1926-1954 N.S.W.. The material parts of that paragraph provide that where a worker has received an injury without his serious and wilful misconduct on any of the daily or other periodic journeys defined in the same sub-section or certain other journeys and the injury be not received during or after any substantial interruption of or substantial deviation from any such journey (apart from specified exceptions), or during or after any other break in any such journey which the (Workers' Compensation) Commission deems not to have been reasonably incidental to the journey, the worker shall receive compensation from the employer in accordance with the Act. It will be noticed that this provision implies that an interruption or deviation, if it be not substantial, is no ground for denying that the worker received the injury on the journey; further, it implies that if the injury be received during the interruption or deviation which is not substantial the injury is still received on the journey. The daily or other periodic journeys are defined amongst other things to include journeys between the worker's place of abode and place of employment.