Doyle v Shenker & Co Ltd

• Jurisdiction: South Africa
• Court: Appellate Division
• Judge: Innes CJ, Solomon JA and De Villiers AJA
• Judgment Date: 27 January 1915
• Citation: 1915 AD 233
• Hearing Date: 18 January 1915

Innes, C.J.:

The applicant sued in the magistrate's court of Cape Town, under sec. 24 of the Workman's Compensation Act, 1905, to recover £300 as damages for an accident to his hand alleged to have arisen out of and in the course of his employment.

Innes, C.J.

The defendant firm denied all liability, and specialty pleaded that the plaintiff had executed a written release which was fatal to his claim. It would appear that Doyle took no steps after the accident to obtain a provisional order, but that he did draw half-pay from his employers for a period of about six weeks. At the expiration of that time be signed a document the relevant terms of which are as follows: "In consideration of the sum of £9 paid to me by Messrs. H. Shenker & Co., I hereby release and discharge the said Shenker & Co. from all claims and demands which I now have or hereafter may have against them for or on account of or in any way whatever arising out of or connected with the accident which happened to me on the 20th April, 1914, whatever the result of that accident may be." Thereafter he was discharged, and he instituted the proceedings above referred to. Evidence was led on both sides, but the contentions of the parties seem to have centred mainly round the document of release. The magistrate, without expressing any opinion upon the merits of the claim, found that the document had been signed by the plaintiff with full knowledge of its contents, and with the intent that it should operate as a complete discharge. He therefore dismissed the action. Now the Act expressly, prohibits any appeal from such a finding; an appeal is permissible only when there has been an express ruling upon the question of gross carelessness; upon every other point the decision of the magistrate is final. In view of this difficulty the plaintiff sought to bring the matter before the Cape Provincial Division by way of review on the ground that the document relied on was null and void in terms of sec. 37 of the statute, and that the magistrate had made no adjudication upon the merits of the claim. The section referred to is to the effect that a contract whereby a workman relinquishes any right to compensation from an employer for personal injury arising out of and in the course of his employment shall be null and void. The Provincial Division entertained the application. Assuming that if the magistrate had clearly disregarded the section his action might constitute an...