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(1) In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires,

"compensation" means compensation as provided by this Act;

"Court" means a District or Circuit Court or any other Court declared by the Chief Justice to be the Court to which in an area or for a case or class of cases proceedings under this Act may be brought;

"dependants" includes

(a) the members of the family of an employee, and

(b) any other persons whom the employee was by reason of adoption under the Adoption Act, 1962 (Act 104) or otherwise obliged to maintain and who were dependent on the earnings of the employee at the time of the death of the employee or would but for the incapacity due to the accident have been so dependent;

"earnings" include wages paid to the employee by the employer and the value of food, fuel, or quarters supplied to the employee by the employer if as a result of the accident the employee is deprived of the food, fuel, or quarters; and overtime payments or any other special remuneration for work done, whether by way of bonus or otherwise, if of constant character or for work habitually performed; but does not include remuneration for intermittent overtime, or casual payments of a non-current nature, or an ex gratia payment whether given by the employer or any other person, or the value of a travelling concession or a contribution paid by the employer of an employee towards a pension or provident fund, or a sum of money paid to an employee to cover special expenses entailed on the employee by the nature of the employment;

"employee" subject to section 1 and subsection (2) of this section, means a person who has entered into or is working under a contract of service or apprenticeship with an employer, whether skilled or unskilled, and whether the contract is expressed or implied, oral or in writing;

"employer" includes the Government and a body of persons corporate or unincorporated and the legal personal representative of a deceased employer, and, where the services of an employee are temporarily lent or let on hire to another person by the person with whom the employee has entered into a contract of service or apprenticeship, the latter, for the purpose of this Act, continues to be the employer of the employee whilst the employee is working for that other person; and in relation to a person employed for the purposes of a game or recreation and engaged or paid through a club, the manager, or members of the managing committee of the club are, for the purposes of this Act, the employer;

"insurer" includes an insurance society, association, company or underwriter;

"labour officer" means a person who is a labour officer for the purposes of the Labour Act, 2003 (Act 651);

"medical practitioner" means a medical practitioner registered under the Medical and Dental Act, 1972 (NRCD 91) as amended;

"member of the family" means

(a) when used in relation to a citizen anyone of those persons mentioned in the Second Schedule according as the family is based on the paternal or the maternal system;

(b) when used in relation to a person who is not a citizen, the wife, husband, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, stepfather, stepmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, stepson, stepdaughter, brother, sister, half-brother, or half-sister;

"Minister" means the Minister responsible for labour matters;

"outworker" means a person to whom articles or materials are given out to be made up, cleansed, washed, altered, ornamented, finished, or repaired, or adapted for sale in that person's home or on other premises not under the control or management of the person who gave out the materials or articles;

"partial incapacity" means,

(a) where the incapacity is of a temporary nature, an incapacity which reduces the earning capacity of an employee in an employment in which the employee was engaged at the time of the accident resulting in the incapacity, and

(b) where the incapacity is of a permanent nature, an incapacity which reduces the earning capacity of the employee in an employment which the employee was capable of undertaking at that time; but an injury specified in the Third Schedule, except an injury or a combination of injuries in respect of which the percentage or aggregate percentage of the loss of earning capacity as specified in that Schedule against that injury or injuries amounts to one hundred per centum or more shall be deemed to result in permanent partial incapacity;

"Rules" means the Rules of Court made under this Act by the Rules of Court Committee established under article 157 of the Constitution;

"total incapacity" means an incapacity whether of a temporary or permanent nature, which incapacitates an employee for an employment which the employee was capable of undertaking at the time of the accident resulting in the incapacity; but a permanent total incapacity shall be deemed to result from an injury or from a combination of injuries specified in the Third Schedule where the percentage or aggregate percentage of the loss of earning capacity as specified in that Schedule against such injury or injuries, amounts to one hundred per centum or more;

"tributer" means a person who is granted permission to win minerals, receiving a proportion of the minerals won by that person or the value of the minerals;

(2) The following persons are exempted from the definition of "employee":

(a) a person whose employment is of a casual nature and who is employed otherwise than for the purposes of the employer's trade or business, who is not a person employed for the purposes of a game or recreation and engaged or paid through a club, or

(b) an outworker, or

(c) a tributer, or

(d) a member of the employer's family dwelling in the employee's house or compound, or

(e) a person employed in agricultural or handicraft work by an employer who normally employs less than five employees, or

(f) a class of persons declared by the Regulations not to be an employee for the purposes of this Act.

(3) Where in proceedings for the recovery of compensation under this Act it appears to the Court that the contract of service or apprenticeship under which the injured person was working at the time when the accident causing the injury happened was illegal, the Court may, if having regard to all the circumstances of the case it thinks proper so to do, deal with the matter as if the injured person had at the time been a person working under a valid contract of service or apprenticeship.

(4) Except for the purposes of section 15, a reference to an employee who has been injured shall, unless the context otherwise requires, where the employee is dead, include a reference to the legal personal representatives, or to the dependants of the employee or any of them or the Attorney-General or any other officer appointed by the Minister to act on behalf of the dependants of the employee.

(5) The performance of the functions of a local or any other public authority shall, for the purposes of this Act, be treated as the trade or business of the authority; but this subsection shall not be deemed to apply to the Government, or to a Department of the Government.