the floor, but there was insufficient to cover the whole surface. A workman slipped and suffered injury. The House of Lords held that the defendant employers were not negligent in allowing their employees, including the plaintiff, to continue to work while this risk existed. The following extract is from Lord Porter’s speech, beginning at p 652:

doi:10.4324/9781843140504-87

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the floor, but there was insufficient to cover the whole surface. A workman slipped and suffered injury. The House of Lords held that the defendant employers were not negligent in allowing their employees, including the plaintiff, to continue to work while this risk existed. The following extract is from Lord Porter’s speech, beginning at p 652:

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ABSTRACT

My Lords, undoubtedly the respondents did their best to get rid of the effects of the flood, employing such of the day workers as could be spared and obtaining volunteers from them for work in the interval between day and night work and from the night shift at a later period, but in the learned judge’s opinion it was not possible for them to take any further steps to make the floor less slippery. I understand his view to have been, however, that, inasmuch as the effect of the storm left the gangway in question, and possibly other portions of the works, somewhat slippery and therefore potentially dangerous, they should have shut down the whole works if necessary, or at any rate such portion as was dangerous.