Declining importance of distinction : In the last 30 years it has become somewhat less important to distinguish the employees of the employer from other workers for the purposes of determining liability to compensate for industrial injury. This removed one of the reasons for distinguishing the employee from other

doi:10.4324/9781843140504-64

Chapter

ABSTRACT

In Donoghue v Stevenson (1932)11 Lord Macmillan had posited that ‘The categories of negligence are never closed.’ The case added another category (namely, manufacturers and consumers) to the relationships in which a duty of care might exist. This new category was comparable to the existing categories which included master and servant and occupier and visitor. Within this approach the personal duty of the master to the servant was different from the duty of the occupier to visitors and indeed the occupier’s duty varied according to whether the visitor were an invitee or a licensee. The content of the duty was deemed to be a matter of law and could not therefore vary according to the evidence in a particular case. The employer’s duty was spelt out in Wilsons and Clyde Coal Co Ltd v English (1938)12 and other cases as being a duty to provide, inter alia, safe premises, safe plant and equipment and a safe system of work.