Webster v Randfontein Estates G M Co (Witwatersrand) Ltd [1911] ZAWLD 25 (23 June 1911)

Negligence - Dangerous Premises - Excavation not near Road - Licensee. - "Open Working" - Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations - Act 32 of 1909.

The plaintiff, while accompanying one of defendant's employes at night across defendant's mining property towards such employee's living quarters, fell into an excavation which had been made for the purpose of a tube mill and was injured. The direction being followed by the plaintiff, at the time of the accident, was not along a road, but along a short cut used by the employes as a convenient way to reach their quarters. The plaintiff knew he was on defendant's mining property and that there was much machinery and probably some holes and excavations thereon.

Held, that the plaintiff had used the said short cut at his peril, and defendants were not liable to him for the injury he had suffered.

An excavation for the purpose of a tube mill is not an "open working"or "excavated portion of a mine" within the meaning of the Mines, Works and Machinery Regulations, sec.2, clause 9, framed under Act 32 of 1909, sec.4.