Note 518 — Chapter VII

This defence of “common employment,” which practically deprived the workman in large undertakings of any remedy in case of accidents arising through negligence in the works, was first recognised in the case of Priestly v. Fowler in 1837 (3 Meeson and Welby). Not until 1868 did the House of Lords, as the final Court of Appeal, extend it to Scotland. The growth of colossal industrial undertakings, in which thousands of workmen were, technically, “in common employment,” made the occasional harshness of the law still more invidious.