MANUFACTURERS MUTUAL INSURANCE LIMITED v HOOPER [1988] NSWCA 90

MANUFACTURERS MUTUAL INSURANCE LIMITED v HOOPER

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

Hope, PRIESTLEY & MCHUGH JJA 14 April 1988, 6 May 1988 [1988] NSWCA 90

INSURANCE — Policy under s18 of Workers' Compensation Act — Indemnity in respect of employer's liability independently of Act for injury to worker — Worker killed by leaking gas when working in pit — Action by widow in respect of nervous shock suffered when told of husband's death — Action by Passer-by who was injured when he went to the help of the worker — Meaning of "for any injury to any such worker" in s18(1) of Workers' Compensation Act and in policy of insurance — Rheem Australia Limited v Manufacturers' Mutual Insurance Limited [1984] 2 NSWLR 370 applied — Liability "for any injury to any such worker" construed to mean liability "to any person consequent upon or in respect of injury to" a worker — Held indemnity under policy extended to both forms of liability.

Hope JA The questions for decision in this appeal are whether a policy of insurance in the form prescribed for the purposes of s18 of the Workers' Compensation Act (the Act) indemnifies the employer, where a worker employed by him is injured and dies in an accident in the course of or arising out of his employment, against his common law liability to (a) the widow of the worker who suffers mental and nervous shock upon hearing of her husband's death and (b) a passer-by who was injured when he went to the help of the worker. In the decision appealed against Clarke J (as he then was) held that the employer was entitled to that indemnity in each case.

The agreed facts for the purposes of the proceedings were these:-

1. On 12 February 1982 Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) was insured by the Plaintiff, Manufacturers' Mutual Insurance Limited (MMI), under an Employers' Indemnity Policy in the form prescribed pursuant to the Workers' Compensation Act 1926 as amended.