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(1837) 1 M&W 1 (Ex Ch). The claimant was injured when an overloaded cart, driven by his fellow employee, overturned on top of him. At first instance, a jury found for the claimant and awarded substantial damages. On appeal, it was held that the employee should not be liable for injuries to his employees. This was on policy, rather than logical, grounds; the judges considered that employees were better placed to know the risks posed by fellow employees than their employers were. Why, it was argued, should the employer be required to take better care for his employees than they themselves would? And, as Abinger CB rather laconically remarked, if liability was allowed in these circumstances, there was no logical reason why the principle could not be extended such that

“the master would be liable to the servant, for the negligence of the chambermaid, in putting him into a damp bed.”

However, the general principle that this case seemed to espouse -- that an employer could never be liable to his employees -- was not carried forward. Ultimately Priestly came to be understood to mean that the employer did not attract VicariousLiability for the negligence of one employee towards another, which is a somewhat narrower, and somewhat more humane, view. The narrower principle, which came to be known as the doctrine of common employment, continued to be upheld for a century, until it was finally laid to rest by the law reform personal injuries act (1948).