NELSON vs. MENSAH

JUDGMENT OF EDUSEI J. In this action the plaintiff is claiming damages for the injuries he has suffered in the workshop of the defendant alleging: (a) There was a statutory breach by the defendant’s failure to securely fence his saw-machine, and (b) The ground of common law negligence. The evidence clearly shows that the plaintiff was apprenticed to the defendant to learn the carpentry trade in his workshop. There is no dispute the defendant’s workshop is a factory within the meaning of the Factories, Offices and Shops Act, 1970 (Act 328). After his apprenticeship, which lasted four years, the plaintiff was employed by the defendant as a carpenter in the same workshop, and he had been doing this work as a carpenter for some two years before the accident which resulted in injury to himself. The accident happened in the morning of 17 April 1973, and the plaintiff’s evidence as to how the accident occurred is as follows: “I remember that on 17 April 1973, when ...