Accident arising out of and in the course of employment
An accident arising out of employment implies a casual 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 injury. The three tests for determining whether an accident arose out of employment are:
At the time of injury workman must have been engaged in the business of the employer and must not be doing something for his personal benefit;
That accident occurred at the place where he as performing his duties; and
Injury must have resulted from some risk incidental to the duties of the service, or inherent in the nature condition of employment.
The general principles that are evolved are:
There must be a casual connection between the injury and the accident and the work done in the course of employment;
The onus is upon the applicant to show that it was the work and the resulting strain which contributed to or aggravated the injury;
It is not necessary that the workman must be actually working at the time of his death or that death must occur while he was working or had just ceased to work; and
Where the evidence is balanced, if the evidence shows a greater probability which satisfies a reasonable man that the work contributed to the causing of the personal injury it would be enough for the workman to succeed. But where the accident involved a risk common to all humanity and did not involve any peculiar or exceptional danger resulting from the nature of the employment or where the accident was the result of an added peril to which the workman by his own conduct exposed himself, which peril was not involved in the normal performance of the duties of his employment, then the employer will not be liable.
