(1.) This is a workman's appeal against a decision of the Commissioner under the Workmen's Compensation Act rejecting a claim to compensation made on the ground that the applicant sustained an injury on 19 March 1930 while working in the spinning department of a cotton mill. The applicant's case is that he was a piecer, that his duty was to tie broken ends of cotton threads, that while he was standing by the machine and putting a bobbin on a spindle the bottom of his dhoti got caught between two rollers which were underneath the table of the machine and he says that the bottom of his dhoti having been caught between the two rollers was pulled in, that he put out his hand to try to pull it out and that in that way his hand got crushed. It seems that as a result of the injury his arm had to be amputated an inch or two below the shoulder. The employers make the case that it was quite impossible for a person standing by the machine and either putting a bobbin on a spindle or doing his proper work as a piecer to get his dhoti caught between the two rollers in the manner alleged. It is further said that at the time of the accident the applicant said both to the doctor and to the manager that he had got his arm crushed in a different way altogether, namely that he was trying to remove a torn spindle banding from the tin rollers while they were in motion. It was no part of the applicant's duty to interfere with the tin rollers. It is not contended that it was any part of his duty to take out any torn spindle banding from the tin rollers. The tin rollers were underneath the table altogether and the underneath part of the table was fenced off in the manner which has been described so that it would be necessary, to get one's hand into the tin roller to stoop down and reach out underneath the table.
(2.) The learned Commissioner had several witnesses called before him for the applicant. There is the applicant's own evidence as to his dhoti being caught by a roller. There were fellow workers with him who came and said that they saw his dhoti caught in the roller. But some of the corroborative witnesses appear to have been of a very poor quality and some of them also do not profess to have seen the actual commencement of the accident. Against that there was the evidence of the doctor and the evidence of the manager, and the learned Commissioner on two occasions examined the machine very carefully for himself. He has come to the conclusion-and from his description of the machine it is evidently very clear-that the story that the dhoti got caught between the rollers when he was standing by the machine attending to his duties is entirely impossible and must be disbelieved altogether, it not being possible for the dhoti to have got caught in that way. That is a finding of fact based upon his own examination of the machine, but it can be seen by this Court to be very well based indeed by reason of the description of the machine given by the Commissioner. That being so the Commissioner says: I do not believe that the accident happened through the applicant's dhoti being drawn into the machine. His case that it arose out of his employment is based upon this and I see no other way in which it could have arisen out of his employment, though it might very easily have happened as stated by the opposite party.
(3.) Now, one way to deal with a case of this character would be for the learned Commissioner to state his findings as to what the applicant's employment or duties were-what he was engaged to do; and then to go on to state his finding as to how the accident, in fact, happened. The learned Commissioner's judgment has given a good deal of trouble by reason that it does not follow this course. It does not state properly what the duties of the applicant were. It is not expressly stated whether the Commissioner was satisfied that rules were made or orders given that these piecers were not to meddle with the machinery while in motion. As, however, that is admitted by the applicant in his evidence, it does not very much matter. It is much to be wished however that the Commissioner had come to some more specific findings of fact as to how the accident happened. If the story as to the dhoti being caught is disbelieved, the applicant is found to be basing his case upon a false story. In that case one asks oneself why should not the evidence of the doctor and the manager be believed? It does not appear to me that the statement "though it might very easily have happened as stated by the opposite party" is a sufficient statement in the circumstances. The difficulty in dealing with the question whether the accident arose out of his employment without finding how the accident arose and going carefully into the limitations that had been put on the duties of the applicant is very considerable. In one case, for example, Mrs. Margaret Thorn, or Simpson v. Sinclair (1917) AC 127, (though it was not a case quite of the present character) it was said by Lord Shaw of Dunfermline: I think that the statute is not satisfied by asking the question as to whether the nature of the employment of the injured person had any causal relation to the accident, because it is clear that in very many instances the accident arose out of the employment as such, apart from the particular nature of the service which the injured workman had to render; and in another passage the same learned Lord says: My view of the statute is that the expression arising out of the employment is not confined to the mere nature of the employment. The expression, in my opinion, applies to the employment as such to its nature, its conditions, its obligations and its incidents. If by reason of any of these the workman is brought within the zone of special danger and so injured or killed, it appears to me that the broad words of the statute arising out of the employment apply. If the peril which he encountered was not an added peril produced by the workman himself, as in the cases of Plumb V/s. Cobden Flour Mills Co. (1914) AC 62 and Barnes V/s. Nunnery Colliery Co. (1912) AC 44 in this House then a case for compensation under the statute appears to arise.