Ebbw Vale Steel, Iron and Coal Co Limited v Williams     Master and servant – Workmen’s compensation – Partial incapacity treated as total –
Contract of employment terminated – Probability of obtaining same class of work as before –
Workmen’s Compensation Act 1925 (c 84), s 9(4) – Workmen’s Compensation Act 1931
(c 18), s 1.
A disabled miner was in receipt of compensation for total incapacity. The employers gave
notice terminating his contract of service, and afterwards brought proceedings to review and
diminish the weekly payment. The manager of the colliery said in evidence that if the miner
had not had nystagmus he would probably have been working for the employers; that he
made a practice of re-engaging old workmen if he needed them; and that he was instructed to
give the workman notice in consequence of the House of Lords’ decision in Barstow v
Ingham’s Thornhill Collieries Ltd [1934] AC 304; Digest Supp. The county court judge,
nevertheless, was not satisfied that the workman would have been employed, or that he was
unfit to do the work by reason of nystagmus, or that his failure to obtain employment was
consequent either wholly or mainly on his injury. He therefore reduced the amount of the
compensation:—