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A few typical cases so as to explain 'personal injury' and 'accident' are quoted below:
Nervous Shock
A nervous shock was caused by the excitement and alarm resulting from a fatal accident to a fellow workman while engaged in the employment.
Held: it was a case of personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of employment.
Exposure to heat, cold etc.
An electrician in a press had, in the course of his duties, frequently to go into a heating room and from there to a cooling plant where the temperature was kept considerably low. One
night when he went into the cooling room he got pneumonia and died of the disease.
Held: the injury was caused by accident arising out of and in the course of employment.
Strain
A workman employed to turn the wheel of a machine, by an act of overexertion, ruptured himself Held: he suffered an injury by accident (Fenton vs. Thorbay & co. Ltd., 1903). Incapacity or death as a result of strain due to lifting heavy weights comes within the purview of accident. It is not necessary to establish that there was any exceptional strain on that particular day. If it could he established that incapacity or death was due to strenuous work the employee was doing, his incapacity/death would come within the purview of the accident.
Crime and Violence
A cashier, while travelling in a railway carriage to a colliery with a large sum of money for making payment to his employer's workmen was robbed and murdered.
It was held that the murder was an 'accident' from the stand-point of the person who suffered from it and arose out of an employment which involved more than ordinary risk. Assault by co-worker is an employment injury if the risk is incidental to employment.
Acceleration of a disease
When death or incapacity of a workman is caused by acceleration of disease already existing, due to an accident, the death or incapacity will be deemed to have resulted from the accident. But when the incapacity or death results from the disease itself, independent of the accident, the workman or his dependants, as the case may be, will not be allowed compensation.
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