Goliath's Safety Blog

The World has gone mad

In the last week there has been a number of high profile court cases where judgements have awarded injured parties lots of money. From €25,000 for slipping on gravy in Dunnes Stores, €77,000 for cutting your finger while cleaning up paper receipts in a hotel in bray, and a lady who won €20,000 for banging her knee off a table in a table in a Mullingar hotel. These awards figures did not included legal costs with could run into the hundreds of thousands on top of the awarded amounts.

Now lets be clear from the outset that these people had real injuries and suffered real pain, but with a level of health & safety training these claims could have been if not eliminated but risk reduced.

All these cases where argued that the employer was negligent with there health and safety obligations to there staff at some level.

The 2 cases of the hotels the awards totalling over €100,000 were a cases of somebody not cleaning up after them selves when they either spilt or broke a glass. A lazy staff member not bothered to clean up after themselves and this costs the employer, it may seems unfair but in Ireland insurance claiming is seen as a victimless crime (excuse the word crime ). but the employer is seen as the money tree and like all legal people you follow the money tree hit it enough times and you hope a little falls off to your clients and them selves.

These insurance claims has pushed up the cost of business insurance through the roof and has priced many of an good employer out of business. The business closes and the people are let go and join the unemployment lines around the country.

A reasonable business owner provides there staff with what every health and safety training is necessary and to make sure that this policy is implemented. This gives the business owner a reasonable argument when going into argue in the courts of the lands, "well Judge, I did everything I could do in my power to safe guard my employees and the public from harm and injury"

The Health and Safety duties of an employer are listed in the Health Safety at work welfare act 2005

Cian O'Carroll Solicitor's in Tipperary explains on there website

What are the employer's basic duties?

1. The provision of competent co-workers.

For an employer to be liable under the competent co-workers heading, it must be shown that he had reason to be aware that the co-worker was incompetent after he had hired him but that he still continued to employ him.

For example:

• Employee not instructed in the safe operation of a consaw leading to injury.

• Poor training or instruction leading to one employee injuring another.

2. The provision of a safe place of work.

An employer owes a duty to ensure a reasonably safe place of work and to maintain the premises in such a condition that it will not endanger the health or wellbeing of the employee. It is not sufficient for the employer to show that the employee was aware of the danger on the premises. In addition, employees who work ‘off site’ may be faced with unsafe conditions for example, on the premises of a client / customer. The employer cannot be familiar with all the circumstances in this instance and therefore cannot be held responsible, however, in the event of injury, the worker would be in a position to sue the owner of that premises and may well have a case against his or her employer.

For example:

• Poorly erected scaffolding leading to collapse or fall.

• Poorly ventilated workplace leading to respiratory injury.

• Wire trailing across a floor leading to trip.

• Fall on a defective stairs in the workplace.

3. The provision of proper equipment.

The duty to provide proper equipment and appliances extends to maintaining them in a proper condition so as not to subject employees to unnecessary risks. The duty under this heading covers two separate points:

1. Equipment supplied must be safe.

2. Equipment essential to the safety of the employee must be provided.

For example:

• All necessary safety equipment must be provided.

• Employees working in noisy areas must be provided with ear defenders.

• Those ear defenders must be adequate for the noise level in the workplace.

4. The provision of a safe system of work.

The provision of a safe system of work is a very wide topic and a suitably all embracing one under which many claims are brought. The degree of safety would depend on the particular job and would vary between wide limits. It is not sufficient for the worker to establish that the employer was negligent, he must also show what actually caused the injury.

For example:

• A factory worker is obliged to perform a repetitive task on a production line without adequate rest or rotation leading to repetitive strain injury in her shoulder

Legal people are not known for there simple language but I like how simple Cian O'Sullivan explains this

Eoin Devlin is the owner of Goliath Safety Training with over 20 years experience working and training in Health & Safety Industry.

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/hairdresser-awarded-20-000-after-banging-knee-off-table-leg-1.3030842

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/circuit-court/damages-of-25-000-for-dunnes-worker-who-slipped-on-gravy-1.3026307

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/courts/high-court/hotel-worker-who-cut-hand-on-glass-awarded-77-000-1.3031005