12/11/2015
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Health and Safety legal update
IOSH November 2015
John Mitchell
Partner, Regulatory Risk & Compliance
Contents
• Recent developments
• In the pipeline
• Duties owed to employees
abroad
• Sentencing cases
• Workplace regs
• Criminal liability
• PPE
• Principles of damage
• Ice slipping cases
• Occupiers liability
12/11/2015
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Recent developments
• SARAH
• New CDM Regulations
• Self-employed exemption
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In the pipeline
• Sentencing Council guidelines on health and safety
offences
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Sentencing – level of fine
R -v- Pyranha Mouldings and Peter Mackreth
• Company guilty of corporate manslaughter
• Director guilty of health and safety offences
• Company unable to pay guideline fine of £500,000
• Court considered relative effect on shareholders and
employees
12/11/2015
March 2015
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Criminal liability for negligent design
R (HSE -v- C-T Aviation Solutions Ltd
• Defendant was a traffic management consultancy
• It designed a system for vehicular approach to Luton
Airport’s terminal building
• A pedestrian crossing the access road at a designated
crossing point was hit by a vehicle and died
• The design was defective due to inadequate markings,
barriers and sight lines
• The defendant contended that being hit by a vehicle on a
pedestrian crossing was “an ordinary incidence of life”
12/11/2015
October 2015
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Principles of damage
Greenway -v- Johnson Matthey
• The claimant was a chemical process operator
• He became sensitised to platinum salts
• His employer removed him from working with platinum
salts
• The removal reduced his earning potential
• He sued his employer for loss of earnings
12/11/2015
November 2014
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Duties owed to employees abroad
Palfrey -v- ARC Offshore Ltd
• The claimant undertook two trips to West Africa in the
course of his employment
• He had no vaccination against malaria and was not
advised by his employers to get one
• On the first trip he bribed officials to give him a yellow
fever vaccination certificate
• Before the second trip he went to a clinic and was
vaccinated against yellow fever
• The clinic did not advise him about the risk from malaria
• He contracted malaria and sued his employers
12/11/2015
February 2011
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Duties owed to employees abroad
Dusek -v- Stormharbour Securities LLP
• The employee needed to visit the site of a hydroelectric
project in the Andes mountains
• The trip was arranged by a Peruvian company involved in
the project
• The trip involved a helicopter flight
• There were two alternative routes and the company
chose the more dangerous route against advice
• The helicopter crashed and all on board died
• The employee’s dependents sued his employer
12/11/2015
January 2015
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Duties owed to employees abroad
Cassley -v- GMP Securities Europe LLP
• The employee needed to visit a mining site in the Congo
on behalf of his employer, a finance house
• The trip was arranged by the mining company
• The trip involved a private charter flight
• The mining company advised that the trip involved some
risk and asked the employer to sign a waiver
• The plane crashed and all on board died
• The employee’s dependents sued his employer
12/11/2015
March 2015
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Duties owed to employees off-duty
Vaughan -v- MoD
• The claimant was a marine
• The marine was on an adventure training exercise
• On the last morning of the trip the marines were told they
were free to do what they wanted
• The marine went to a beach, where he entered the sea,
executed a shallow dive and hit his head on a rock
• He suffered serious injury
• He claimed from the MoD, alleging that he was on duty at
the time of the accident
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March 2015
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Workplace regs – traffic routes
Wilkinson -v- Hjatland Housing Asociation
• Claimant was a social care worker for a local authority
• She was visiting sheltered accommodation units
• The units were let by the defendant housing association
but support was provided by the local authority
• The units were clustered around a courtyard
• In the courtyard, hidden under the snow, was a hole left
by a fountain that had been removed by the defendant
• The claimant fell into the hole and was injured
• Main issue: did the housing association owe a duty to the
claimant under the Workplace regs?
12/11/2015
March 2015
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PPE – ice
Parr -v- Wirral University Hospital Trust
• The claimant was a community midwife
• The Trust policy on footwear was that employees should
wear sensible footwear in icy conditions
• She slipped and fell on an icy pavement after making a
home visit
• She claimed damages on the grounds that the Trust was
in breach of the PPE regs
• She maintained that the Trust should have provided her
with a winter grip device
12/11/2015
November 2014
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Occupiers’ liability - ice
Wilson -v- Bourne Leisure Ltd
• The claimant was a visitor to a holiday camp
• He slipped on an icy path as he was returning to his
accommodation from an event at a venue
• There had been a sudden change in the weather
• The camp’s workmen were gritting the paths
• They offered to grit his path if he could wait for a few
minutes to finish the path they were doing
• He chose to walk on and slipped
12/11/2015
June 2015
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Occupiers’ liability
F -v- Sandwell MBC
• The claimant was a pupil at a primary school
• He pushed his arm down behind a hot radiator in a
school hall and it became trapped
• His arm was burned and permanently scarred
• The school had satisfactory systems to keep children
away from radiators
• More than 600,000 children had used the hall without
incident since the radiator had been installed
12/11/2015
June 2015
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Occupiers’ liability
Buckett -v- Staffordshire County Council
• The claimant was a teenage trespasser on school
premises
• He accessed the lower roofs
• From there he climbed on to the upper roofs and to a
transverse flat roof between two pitched roofs
• The flat roof contained a number of skylights
• He perched on a diagonal brace and then jumped on to a
skylight
• The skylight disintegrated and he fell through
12/11/2015
April 2015
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Occupiers’ liability
Kolasa -v- Ealing Hospitals Trust
• The claimant was an A&E patient brought by ambulance
• He left A&E, wandered off and climbed on a wall
• On the far side of the wall was a 10m drop
• Patient fell off the wall on the far side
• He fell10m and suffered serious injury
• Issue is whether the hospital trust has discharged its
“common duty of care”
12/11/2015
Feb 2015
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Health and Safety legal update
IOSH November 2015
John Mitchell
Partner, Regulatory Risk & Compliance