RULES REGARDING WORKMENTS COMPENSATION

Employers liability for compensation (Sec. 3)

An employer is liable to pay compensation to a workman for (1) personal injury caused
to him by accident as well as for any, and (2) occupational disease contracted by him.
1. Personal injury by accident. An employer is liable to pay compensation to a workman if
personal injury is caused to him by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment
[Sec. 3 (1)].
Personal Injury. The word injury means damage done to a workman by some accident. The
Act contemplates for personal injury. It is not necessarily confined to physical or mental injury. It
includes psychological and physiological injury as well.
Indian News Chronicle Ltd. v. Mrs. Lazarus, (1951-52), 3 F.J.R. 190. A workman, in the
course of his duties, had frequently to go into a heating room and from there to a cooling room.
One night when he went into the cooling room, he got pneumonia of which he died. Held, the
death was due to personal injury.

Accident. The word accident means some unlooked-for mishap or untoward event
which is not expected or designed. If, therefore, an occurrence is unexpected and without any
design on the part of the workman, it is accident.

Arising out of and in the course of employment. The employer is liable to pay
compensation only if personal injury is caused to a workman by an accident arising out of and in
the course of his employment. It is not enough that the injury arises in the course of
employment. It must also arise out of employment. An accident arising out of an employment
necessarily occurs in the course of the employment but an accident in the course of
employment may not necessarily arise out of employment, though ordinarily it will.

Out of employment. An accident arising out of employment implies a causal connection

between the injury and the accident and the work done in the course of employment.
Employment should be the distinctive and the proximate cause of the personal injury whether
physical or mental.
In order to prove that injury arose out of employment, two conditions must be fulfilled:
1. injury must have resulted from some risk incidental to the duties fo the service, or
inherent in the nature or condition of employment, and
2. At the time of injury worker must have been engaged in the business of the employer
and must not be doing something for his personal advantage or benefit.
In the course of employment. It refers to the time during which employment continues.
It covers the whole of the time a workman is carrying out the duties required of him as incidental
to his contract of service. It includes not only the period when he is doing the work actually
allotted to him but also the time when he is at place where he would not be but for his
employment.
Normally, if the factory hours are from 9 A.M. to 6 P.M. the employment commences at 9
A.M. and ceases at 6 P.M. But to this general rule there are certain exceptions which are as
follows:
1. when a means of transport is provided by the employer for the purpose of going to and
from the place of work and workmen use that transport, the time during which that
transport is used by the workmen is also included in the course of employment.
2. When a workman is in the premises of the employer, even though he may not be
actually working at that time, that time is included in the course of employment.
Occupational diseases. Workers employed in certain occupations are exposed to
certain diseases which are inherent in those occupations. For example, a person engaged in
any process involving use of lead tetra-ethyl is liable to contract poisoning by lead tetra-ethyl,
and a person employed as a telegraph operator may contract telegraphists cramp. All such
diseases are known as occupational diseases. Contracting of an occupational disease is
deemed to be an injury by accident within the meaning of Se. 3 (2). In such as case, unless the
contrary is proved, the accident is deemed to have arisen out of and in the course of
employment. As such, the employer is liable to pay compensation if the disease can be directly
attributable to a specific injury by accident arising out of and in the course of employment.