Health and safety

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Clerk wins damages for Met's manual handling failures

  In Stone v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis, a county court awards a police clerk £384,000 for back injuries suffered as a result of her employer's failure to carry out a manual-handling risk assessment or train her in safe lifting.

• Date:

  31 December 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Duncanson v South Ayrshire Council

  In Duncanson v South Ayrshire Council [1999] SLT S19 CS, the Court of Session held that a steel cabinet within a nursery was work equipment for the purposes of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992.

• Date:

  31 December 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Wenham v Bexley

  In Wenham v Bexley 1999 10 CL 388 CC, a county court held that kitchens are places where floors are likely to get wet and accordingly these should be kept dry to avoid breaches of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Paid leave covers "aspects" of safety reps' functions

  In Rama v South West Trains, the High Court confirms that the test to determine safety representatives' entitlement to paid leave to attend health and safety training is not limited to training that is necessary to enable representatives to fulfil their functions.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Failure to assess risks may cause sex discrimination

  In Day v T Pickles Farms Ltd, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) says that an employer should not wait for written notification of an employee's pregnancy before carrying out a risk assessment, and that its failure to carry out an assessment may have caused the employee detriment within the provisions of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Substance need not be named to fall under COSHH

  In Karen Bilton v Fastnet Highlands Ltd, the Scottish Court of Session holds that a fish processor who developed occupational asthma can pursue a claim for compensation against her employer under the Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 1988 (COSHH), even though the substance is not specified by COSHH.

• Date:

  15 March 1999

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Sex discrimination: Failure to carry out risk assessment could have amounted to detriment

  In Day v T Pickles Farms Ltd, the EAT holds that an employer who failed to make an assessment of the risks to the health and safety of a woman of child-bearing age employed in a sandwich shop no later than the date she started working there, and certainly before she became pregnant, could thereby have subjected her to a "detriment" within the meaning of the Sex Discrimination Act 1975.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employers liable under HSW Act for risks caused by contractors

  The liability of an employer for the acts or omissions of a contractor it engages is the central issue in R v Associated Octel Co Ltd. Both the Court of Appeal and the House of Lords have considered this important case, and both have ruled that an employer cannot delegate the duty imposed by s.3(1) of the HSW Act.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Bad training causes back injury

  In Fraser v Greater Glasgow Health Board, a nurse successfully sues her employer, claiming it provided inadequate instruction and training in a manual handling technique.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Company may owe same duty to its contractors as to its employees

  In R v Rhône-Poulenc Rorer Ltd, the Court of Appeal rules that the requirement to provide some suitable physical means to prevent falls through fragile materials, as set out in the construction Regulations, is absolute.