Personal Injury and Occupational Disease — Labour Law II Notes

Personal Injury and Occupational Disease

A prisoner is put to work in a dusty prison workshop, breathes the dust for months, and contracts tuberculosis. There was no single “accident” — no fall, no machine. Can a slow disease from the work still be an “employment injury”? The answer is the whole point of the occupational-disease rule.

Personal injury by accident vs. a disease built up over time

Ordinarily compensation needs an accident — a sudden, identifiable event. But some jobs cause harm gradually: a miner’s lung disease, a chemical worker’s poisoning, a dust-worker’s tuberculosis. To cover these, the Code treats certain occupational diseases as if they were an employment injury, so no single accident need be proved.

The scheme (drawn from Schedule III of the Code) works in parts:

If a worker in a specified employment contracts a disease listed for that employment, the disease is deemed to be an injury by accident arising out of and in the course of employment, and the employer is liable without proof of a specific accident.
The employment must be of the kind for which the disease is scheduled, and (for some diseases) the worker must have been engaged in it for a continuous period.

“Personal injury” itself is read widely — it covers not only a visible wound but also physiological injury such as a heart attack or a nervous shock brought on by the strain of the work.

Section 74 read with Schedule III, Code on Social Security 2020 (in brief): a listed occupational disease contracted in the corresponding employment “shall be deemed to be an injury by accident … arising out of and in the course of employment.”

In Simple Terms: For a normal injury you point to an accident. For a scheduled occupational disease you do not need an accident at all — the disease, caught in the matching job, is treated as the accident.

🧩 WORKED EXAMPLE — the prisoner with tuberculosis

Facts. A person working in a dusty prison workshop contracts tuberculosis from the dust and claims compensation.

Rule. A disease contracted from a workplace hazard can be compensable if it is a notified occupational disease for that employment, when it is deemed an injury arising out of and in the course of employment.

Apply. If the dust-borne disease is scheduled for that kind of work and the exposure was in the course of the work, it is treated as an employment injury; the absence of a single “accident” is no bar.

Conclusion. He can succeed provided the disease is a notified occupational disease for that employment and the employer-employee relationship exists; otherwise he must show the illness arose out of the employment.

flowchart TD
    ROOT["Compensable harm"]:::root
    ROOT --> ACC["Personal injury by ACCIDENT<br/>(sudden event; incl. heart attack, shock)"]:::leaf
    ROOT --> OD["Notified OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE<br/>(Schedule III + matching employment)"]:::leaf
    OD --> DEEM["Deemed an injury arising out of employment<br/>— no accident needed"]:::leaf
    classDef root fill:#FFF8DC,stroke:#000,stroke-width:1px,color:#000;
    classDef leaf fill:#E6F3FF,stroke:#1E3A8A,color:#000;
    linkStyle default stroke:#888,stroke-width:1px;

Case Laws

Indian News Chronicle v Mrs Lazarus (1961) — an employee who caught pneumonia from repeatedly entering a cold chamber died of an “injury by accident”; disease from the work’s conditions is compensable.
E.S.I. Corporation v Francis De Costa (1996) — clarified the causal link required between the employment and the injury/disease.

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