United India Insurance Co. Ltd. v. (Smt.) Susheela

This is the second of the two illustrations this paper uses on notional extension, and it is the one that states the doctrine at its widest. Precisely for that reason it is the one a student is most likely to misuse. It is worth learning as much for the caution attached to it as for the proposition it contains.

A watchman collapsed while returning to roll call after a night's duty. The question was whether a collapse at that moment — the night's work done, the worker moving back for the formality that closes it — was within the course of his employment.

The claim succeeded, and the Court observed that "the concept of 'during the course of employment' can be extended from the time the workman leaves home and returns back after completion of his duty."

First, note what the observation does. It states the course of employment as a period, running from departure from home to return after duty, rather than as a place. On the facts, the watchman had not finished with the employment: roll call was still ahead of him, and the movement towards it was part of the working day.

Second, note that the width of the language exceeds the width of the decision. What the case actually decides is that a worker moving to complete the closing formality of his shift is in the course of employment. The sentence about leaving home and returning is an observation, and it goes considerably further than the facts required.

Third, remember which limb is being discussed. Like Padmavati, this case works on the in the course of limb. The arising out of limb — did the employment expose the worker to the risk that injured him? — is a separate question and is not answered by extending the period.

Use it as an illustration, with its caution stated. State the doctrine from Saurashtra Salt, give Padmavati and Susheela as illustrations, and then say plainly that both are High Court decisions on their facts and that the safe proposition is the narrower one: the extension covers the area a worker necessarily passes through in reaching and leaving work, and activities incidental to the work itself. It does not turn every commuting accident into an employment injury.

A student who quotes the "leaves home and returns back" sentence as the law has overstated the doctrine, and an examiner will mark the overstatement. A student who quotes it, identifies it as an observation of a High Court on its facts, and then states the narrower safe proposition has shown the judgment the question is really testing.

Its useful contribution is to a problem where the worker is injured at the very edge of the shift — going to sign in, coming back to sign off, waiting to be relieved. There the employment has not closed, and this is the illustration to cite.

It does not decide that home-to-work travel is generally covered, and it does not dispense with causation, the three-day rule in the proviso to section 3(1), or the tariff in section 4 by which compensation is actually calculated.

A caution on citation. No report reference is settled for this decision in this course, and the court is recorded only as a High Court. Give the name, the facts and the observation, marked as an observation; do not supply a citation from elsewhere.