HC Deb 22 January 1942 vol 377 cc441-2W
Mr. Isaacs

asked the Home Secretary whether he is aware that insurance companies, when making payments to injured workmen, take receipts for the payments as having been made under the Workmen's Compensation Acts; that these receipts are often signed by the workmen in ignorance of the fact that by so doing they are barring a common law claim; whether he has read the observations of the Master of the Rolls and of Lord Justice Goddard in the recent case of Deane v. H. F. Edwards and Company; and whether he will take action, either legislative, as indicated by the Court of Appeal in that case, or otherwise, to protect the legal rights of injured workmen?

Mr. H. Morrison

My attention has been drawn to this case. I have no doubt that the observations made by the Court of Appeal will have been duly noted by the employers and insurance companies, but I am proposing to confer with the employers and companies, with a view to coming to some arrangement to meet the difficulty which arose in this case.