the original "assessable site value" with what may be called the "occa- April 18, 1912. sional site value' as ascertained at a subsequent period. Now, if the Herbert's Inland Revenue. Lord Cullen. intendment of the statute were that the incidence of the increment value Trustees v. duty should be determined by comparing the value of the land per se as originally ascertained with its value per se as ascertained subsequently, I do not clearly see why the factor for the purposes of comparison should not have been the statutory "full site value." For that is the value of the land per se, regarding it as divested of buildings or other heritable accessions and as free from all incumbrances, charges, or restrictions. To illustrate this by reference to the figures in the present case,-if, by appreciation in the value of the land per se to the extent of £100 the referee's minus quantity were to rise from minus £545 to minus £445, the full site value, were it available for purposes of comparison, would show a similar increase. As it is, however, the statutory factor for comparison is not the value of the land per se (full site value) but the assessable site value. This represents the position in point of value of the loaded site. The Commissioners' Valuation-roll is not to be a roll showing the value of the land in itself. And it is the loaded site, apparently, which has to appreciate in value before increment value duty becomes exigible. Now, if words are to be used in their ordinary sense, I do not very well see how, in the hands of the landowner who is to be taxed, the loaded site can be said to appreciate in "value" until it comes to have, at least, some positive value. Until then, any appreciation in the value of the land per se will accrue to the holder of the excessive feu-duty or other fixed charge by enhancing the value of his security, and, consequently, the value of the fixed charge. The site owner, qua site owner, will continue bankrupt. The holder of the feuduty or other fixed charge is not, however, brought under taxation by the statute in respect of such a betterment of his property. The respondents' contention is that the owner of the site falls to pay for the betterment, which does not provide him with a valuable asset but only goes to relieve, to some extent, his bankrupt state. This is, a priori, an improbable scheme of taxation, inasmuch as it involves that one man shall be taxed in respect of an increment in the value of property which, so far as any positive worth goes, accrues wholly to another. And while I am sensible that the construction of the statute under consideration is attended with much difficulty, I have been unable to extract from it this anomalous result. I accordingly agree in the conclusion at which your Lordships have arrived. THE COURT recalled the first decision of the referee which fixed the original site value of the subjects at minus £545, and affirmed the second or alternative decision fixing it at nil. CONNELL & CAMPBELL, S.S.C.-SIR PHILIP J. HAMILTON GRIERSON, No. 131. May 14, 1912. Euman v. Lothians and Peebles. MRS AGNES EASTON OR EUMAN, Pursuer (Respondent). T. G. Robertson. JAMES DALZIEL & COMPANY, Defenders (Appellants).— Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906 (6 Edw. VII. cap. 58), Second Schedule, In arbitration proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, the arbitrator found that a workman's death resulted from injuries sustained by him owing to a fall from a ladder, and awarded compensation. A medical certificate which was produced stated the cause of death to have been appendicitis-peritonitis. The arbitrator refused a minute for the employers craving him to state a case for the opinion of the Court on the question whether the death of the deceased I was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment," on the ground that the question was one of fact and not of law. Held that the proper question was "whether there was evidence upon which it could competently be found that the death of the workman was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment"; and case remitted to the arbitrator to state a case on this question. 1ST DIVISION. ON 14th May 1912 James Dalziel & Company, manufacturers, Sheriff of the Walkerburn, presented a note to the Court in which they prayed for an order on Mrs Agnes Easton or Euman to show cause why a case should not be stated by the Sheriff-substitute of the Lothians at Peebles (Orphoot) on appeal from a judgment which he had delivered as arbitrator in proceedings under the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906, in which Mrs Euman claimed compensation in respect of the death of her husband while in the employment of the appellants. The appellants set forth that it had been admitted or proved in the arbitration proceedings, inter alia, that, on 18th July 1911, Euman, whilst engaged in their employment, fell from a ladder, sustained certain injuries, and was found to be suffering from general shock and from a local injury known as "staved ankle"; that he was confined to bed for three weeks; and that in the fourth week, on 15th August, he died, the cause of death being certified to be appendicitis-peritonitis. On 12th January 1912 the Sheriff-substitute pronounced certain findings, which included the following:-" (1) That on 18th July 1911 Robert Euman, mill foreman, Walkerburn, was in the employment of the defenders as a millworker in their mills at Walkerburn, when he met with an accident arising out of and in the course of his said employment, through a ladder on which he was standing accidentally slipping, whereby he was thrown to the ground and injured; (2) that the said Robert Euman died at Walkerburn on 15th August 1911; (3) that his death resulted from the injuries he received by said accident"; and awarded compensation. The employers lodged a minute craving the Sheriff to state a case for the Court of Session on the following question of law :-" Whether the death of the said Robert Euman was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment within the mean- May 14, 1912. ing of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906?" Euman v. They also caused a draft stated case to be presented to the Sheriff- Dalziel & Co. substitute for his signature containing the following questions of law: -"(1) Whether the arbitrator was entitled to draw from the facts stated the inference that the peritonitis which caused the death of the deceased was the result of his being confined to bed with a staved ankle? (2) Whether the death of the deceased was caused by personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment?" The Sheriff-substitute refused to state a case or sign the draft case, and certified the following reasons for his refusal :-"(1) That the questions of law stated in the draft stated case submitted to me are not raised by the admissions made or the facts proved before me; (2) that the only question raised in this arbitration is, Did the death of Robert Euman, husband of the pursuer, on 15th August 1911, result from personal injuries sustained by him in the accident which happened to him on 18th July 1911? and (3) that that question is a question of fact.” The employers craved the Court to pronounce the required order for these reasons: "Because the question whether the death of the deceased did or did not result from injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, under the conditions found proved as above, is a question of law and not of fact. "Because there was no evidence that the death of the deceased resulted from the injuries he received by the accident on 18th July aforesaid." The case was heard before the First Division (consisting of the Lord President, Lord Johnston, and Lord Skerrington) on 14th May 1912. Argued for the respondent;-The Sheriff-substitute had rightly refused to state a case on the question whether the death of the deceased was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, as this was a question of fact, not of law. If the appellants desired to raise the question whether there was evidence before the Sheriff-substitute to support his findings, the question should have been in the form suggested by Lord Atkinson in the House of Lords in the case of Jackson v. General Steam Fishing Company,1 viz., "Was there evidence before the Sheriff-substitute upon which he might reasonably have found that the accident by which the deceased met his death arose out of and in the course of his employment." This was quite a different question from that which had been proposed to the Sheriff-substitute, and the Court should not now direct him to state a case on a question which had not been raised before him.2 Argued for the appellants;-It was the duty of the respondent to establish, either by direct evidence or by legitimate inference from the facts proved, that the death resulted from an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment. This duty had not been 11909 S. C. (H. L.) 37, at p. 41. 2 Rae v. Fraser, (1899) 1 F. 1017; Hobbs & Samuels v. Bradley, (1900) 2 F. 744. 3 Hawkins v. Powell Tillery Steam Coal Co., Limited, [1911] 1 K. B. 988, per Cosens Hardy, M.R., at p. 991. Euman v. May 14, 1912. discharged. The question which was raised in the present case was whether the facts proved could reasonably support the findings of the Dalziel & Co. arbitrator, and this was a question of law on which the appellants were entitled to have the opinion of the Court. Though the question had not been put in this precise form to the Sheriff it was his duty to have adjusted the stated case so as to bring out the true question. Even in the form proposed to the Sheriff the question was not incompetent, for questions in that form had been admitted and considered. by the Court in previous cases.1 LORD PRESIDENT.-This is an application to us to ordain the Sheriff to state a case. He has refused to state a case when asked, and the application is made in accordance with the provisions of the Act of Sederunt of 26th June 1907 which deal with that matter. The claim is at the instance of the widow of a workman who died. He died, it seems, of peritonitis-appendicitis-peritonitis, I think, is the form of the certificate, which I suppose means that the cause of death was appendicitis, or otherwise inflammation of the appendix, and that that inflammation had spread to the peritoneum so that there was inflammation of the peritoneum as well as of the appendix. Now, the accident which he had met with using the word "accident" in the popular sense of the word-was that he had fallen from a ladder; and one can see easily enough that the question that is really raised between the parties is whether the death was due to the accident or was not. The Sheriff-substitute, acting as arbitrator, disposed of the matter by the following findings :—(1) That the workman "met with an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, through a ladder on which he was standing accidentally slipping, whereby he was thrown to the ground and injured; (2) that the said Robert Euman died at Walkerburn on 15th August 1911; and (3) that his death resulted from the injuries he received by said accident":— and that is all that the interlocutor tells us about the accident; the rest of the case concerns the adjustment of the compensation. Now, as your Lordships well know, it has been conclusively settled by decisions of the House of Lords and of this Court, that, although such appeals are by statute limited to questions of law, nevertheless they are competent when the question is whether such findings as these can be supported upon the evidence submitted, for that has been held to be a question of law. The criterion is whether anyone could reasonably have come to that conclusion. It has been said more than once that this criterion is, if not exactly the same, at least strictly analogous to the criterion we are in use to apply where we are asked to direct a new trial on the ground that the verdict of a jury is contrary to evidence. It is not a question of whether the decision is right or wrong, but a question of whether there was evidence led upon which the decision can be supported. I think as soon as that position is laid down, it is quite impossible for us to direct our minds intelligently to the question unless we have before us a stated 1 Coe v. Fife Coal Co., Limited, 1909 S. C. 393; Blakey v. Robson, Eckford, & Co., Limited, supra, p. 334. The Lord President referred to Millar v. Refuge Assurance Co., Limited, supra, p. 37. case which will give us a description of what the evidence that was led May 14, 1912. was. Accordingly, we have more than once insisted either upon cases Euman v. being stated, or upon cases being modified which were inadequate in their Dalziel & Co. statement, so as to enable us to apply our minds intelligently to the ques- Ld. President. tion before us. I can give a very recent illustration of that in the case of Millar v. Refuge Assurance Company, where, after a case was stated, we sent it back in order that it should be modified. Here I do not think there can be any doubt that the respondents had a right to have the question raised which they wished decided, namely, whether these findings of the Sheriff can reasonably be supported on the evidence given. 1 Now, the only difficulty that I have had at all in this case is owing to the terms of the minute in which the respondents made their original crave. The minute is lodged also in terms of the Act of Sederunt, and runs thus: "Oliver for the defenders respectfully craved the Court to state a case for the decision of the First Division of the Court of Session upon the following question of law, viz., whether the death of the said Robert Euman was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment within the meaning of the Workmen's Compensation Act, 1906." Now, strictly speaking, I think that question is wrongly put, because that is not a question for us. That would be simply asking us to reply to a question of fact upon the merits. The question is, as I have said, whether the evidence as led before the Sheriff could support the finding that he made. But although that is so, and although I think it should be made clear that the proper form of the question is as I have said, I think it would be treating the appellants too harshly if we refused to allow a case to be stated upon the ground that they phrased their question in that form, in view of the fact that there are many cases in the books where we have gone into the question of whether the evidence did support the findings in a reasonable sense upon a question phrased exactly as this question is phrased. As recently as the case of Robson, Eckford, & Company2 (23rd December 1911) the question was phrased in that way. I think the proper form of the question is the form that is given in Millar v. Refuge Assurance Company 1: "Whether there was evidence upon which it could be competently found that the said James Millar sustained an accident arising out of and in the course of his employment on 9th May 1910?” I think that is the form in which the question ought to be put. Το refuse this note because it is put in a different form would, I think, be treating the appellants too hardly. I think, therefore, the case should go back to the Sheriff in order that he may state the facts proved before him upon which he found that the death was the result of an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment. LORD JOHNSTON.-I think that in the minute presented to the Sheriff, and equally in the draft special case laid before him, the question put to him was one on which he was not bound to prepare a special case, and I cannot say he did wrong in refusing to do so. But now that the parties desiring to appeal have learned what the question ought to have been, I |