130 sated. The clause was incorporated in a standard form agreement widely used in the engineering industry and was deemed to represent a fair distribution of risks. Some cases have concerned insurance, whether the insurance company was liable to pay compensation in disputes on the interpretation of the terms of insurance, particularlv those concerning exceptions fromliability. The Supreme Court has attached great weight to whether the exceptions have been expressed clearly enough (see cases 1987 p. 835 and 1988 p. 408). A case decided in 1911 (p. 375) indicates a rather free and audacious method of interpretation, a desire to disregard the formal chain of contracts and be governed by the realities in the case. The case is about a so-called middle-man situation: A had engaged two persons, B and C, to fell and remove the timber in a forest area. B and C haci engaged Dto help them. D was injured and the issue was: who, in the meaning of a statute concerning an employer’s liability to pay compensation for injuries at work, was D’s responsible employer, B and C who had engaged him, or A for whom the work had been carried out? The majority of the Supreme Court held A liable, because it had appatently been implied, when A made his contract with B and C, not only that B and C were to performthe w'ork themselves but also that they could engage and pay other persons for the performance. A was therefore to be regarded as the employer also in relation to D. Thus the “real” employer was chosen instead of the formal one indicated by the chain of contracts, by contrast with what happened in a case in 1906 (p. 533), which was now oyerruled by the Supreme Court. This case from 1911 became the starting point of a deyelopment towards the modern concept of an employee, a concept of importance in many situations, which facilitated a broad definition taking into account social and economic aspects. It was an early example of “piercing the veil”. It is interesting to note that the Labour Court, established in 1928, did not for a long time accept this wide definition. In a case from 1947 the Court declared that no difference could be made between contracts with reference to the social and economic position of the parties. A contract to performa certain task, for instance to transport an amount of gravel fromone place to another, should be interpreted in the same wa\’ whether the commitment had been made bv a companv, a widow, a farmer or a crofter. Contracts identical in wording cannot produce different effects. If the crofter and possible the farmer were to take part in the performance themselves this was according to the Labour Court a factual circumstance without legal significance. Later the Labour Court has adopted the same principles as the Supreme Court m deciding whether an emplo\ er-emplo\ ee relationship exists or not. In a similar way, when establishing the content and legal effects of a contract, the Supreme Court has taken into consideration the fact that one partv is a consumer and the other one a tradesman. What can be quite clear in a contract for a tradesman mav be difficult to understand for the common man, and the Supreme Court therefore has laid down high demands of clarity for the wording of contracts with consumers. A failure to comply with these demands mav lead to a construction of the contract in favour of the consumer (for an example see a case from 1986 p. 44). Watchfulness so as to avoid possible misunderstanding or mistakes on the part of the counter-party, when a contract is negotiated and concluded, was early required b\' the Labour Court when interpreting collective agreements. This method has gained some ground m the practice of the Supreme Court as well. The party who has had reason to suspect that the other party had another opinion as to what a contract or a special provision in it means, and has done nothing to clarify the difference, may have to accept the opinion of the other party being decisive, although less supported by facts (the wording and other circumstances). Furthermore, if one party is aware of the fact that the other party unwittingly has an erroneous opinion of what the contract means and remains
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