Chief Adjudication Officer v Faulds

Entitlement to industrial injuries benefit for personal injury caused by accident requires an identifiable event or incident, personal injury and a causal connection between them. Injury and accident may overlap, but they remain conceptually distinct.

An unexpected injury may result from an expected event. Foreseeability, expectation and exceptional character may assist, but none is conclusive. Where injury develops cumulatively, the claimant must identify a specific and ascertainable accident or series of accidents rather than merely a continuous process. Developing a stress-related disorder through stressful work is insufficient without proof that an accident or accidents caused the disorder.

A senior fire officer developed post-traumatic stress disorder after many years attending fatal incidents. A social security appeal tribunal accepted that a series of incidents had resulted in industrial injury. The Social Security Commissioner substituted a decision intended to give effect to that conclusion.

The Extra Division of the Court of Session, 1998 SLT 1203, refused the adjudication officer's appeal. It considered that exposure to shocking sights could constitute the accidental cause and that injury and cause might merge.

The central issue before the House was whether section 94(1) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 required an identifiable accident, distinct in concept from the injury, and whether the evidence established that any particular incident or series of incidents caused the disorder.

1. Appeal allowed by a majority of four to one. Lord Clyde delivered the leading speech. Lord Browne-Wilkinson and Lord Mackay agreed with it, and Lord Hope agreed for substantially the same reasons. The case was remitted to the Social Security Commissioner for further factual investigation. Lord Hutton dissented and would have dismissed the appeal.

2. Per Lord Clyde and Lord Hope, the statutory scheme required the claimant to identify an accident. The expression “by accident” in section 94(1) of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits Act 1992 was not equivalent merely to “accidentally”. The necessary elements were an event or incident, personal injury and proof that the event or incident caused the injury. Accident and injury could overlap, but they remained conceptually distinct.

3. Per Lord Clyde, an accident bears its ordinary meaning. Foreseeability, expectation and whether an occurrence was exceptional could be relevant, but none supplied an exhaustive test. An unexpected injury could be caused by an expected incident. The character of the claimant's occupation was also relevant, because an occurrence might be accidental for one worker but an ordinary concomitant of another's work.

4. Per Lord Clyde and Lord Hope, psychological injury was governed by the same principles as physical injury, although its application required careful factual and medical examination. Mere development of a disorder through stressful employment did not establish injury by accident. The claimant had to identify the incident or specific and ascertainable series of incidents that constituted an accident to him and caused the disorder. The distinction between accident and continuous process was useful but was not itself the statutory test.

5. The tribunal and commissioner had not adequately determined which incident or incidents caused the disorder. The Extra Division erred by treating a separable causative event as unnecessary and by permitting injury and cause to merge indistinguishably. The evidence left open whether the aircraft crash investigation initiated the disorder, whether later incidents aggravated it, or whether the condition developed insidiously without any accident.

6. Lord Hutton considered that the Extra Division had identified the claimant's encounters with distressing sights as specific accidents and was entitled to infer that they caused the disorder. He accepted that accident and injury were separate concepts but considered that they could overlap.

1. House of Lords: By a majority of four to one, allowed the appeal from the Extra Division and remitted the case to the Social Security Commissioner for further investigation.
2. Extra Division of the Court of Session: Refused the chief adjudication officer's appeal from the commissioner: 1998 SLT 1203.
3. Social Security Commissioner: Held that the tribunal had erred, but substituted a decision intended to give effect to its conclusion that the relevant series involved an industrial accident or accidents.
4. Social security appeal tribunal: Held that the respondent was incapable of work because of a series of incidents resulting in industrial injury, although its findings and reasons did not identify the relevant causation adequately.