What is the test for determining whether an employer is liable for injuries sustained by a plaintiff in a motor vehicle accident?

Moore v. Manchester Liners [1910] A.C. 498, 79 L.J.K.B. 1175, was applied and followed in Gonyea v. C.N.R., supra, and need not be further referred to. Two other cases cited on the argument very pertinently support the conclusions I have reached. Dawbarn on Employers’ Liability, 4th ed., p. 112, says:— What is evidence or no evidence is often separated by a line of very fine drawing. Roughly there are two great classes of such cases (a) When the accident takes place on the actual scene of a man’s duty, and (b) when it does not. As a rule, in the former class of case the workman gets a very liberal benefit of the doubt, and very slight evidence is required to warrant the inference of fact that the accident arose out of and in the course of the employment. So much so that the onus of proof seems almost shifted on to the employer to prove the contrary.

In support of this the author cites with other cases, McNicholas v. Dawson [1899] 1 Q.B. 773, 68 L.J.Q.B. 470, where the deceased was found crushed to death on the scene of his duty, by machinery that it was his duty to start. There was no proof as to how the accident occurred, but it may have happened through attempting to leave by a forbidden door. Assuming that it did so happen the plaintiffs were nevertheless found entitled to recover.