Health and safety

New and updated

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Training and experience should have stopped fireman taking risks

  In Crofts v Roche Products Ltd, a firefighter who suffered a back injury while putting out a fire fails to win damages from his employer. The Court of Session holds that, given his training and experience, his employer could not anticipate he would attempt to lift or carry anything that would give rise to a risk of injury.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Health authority failed to protect radiographer from X-ray fumes

  In Ogden v Airedale Health Authority, the High Court finds a health authority negligent after it failed to protect a radiographer from harmful fumes emitted by X-ray chemicals.

• Date:

  31 December 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Malcolm v Metropolitan Police Commissioners

  In Malcolm v Metropolitan Police Commissioners 1995 5 CLR 368 HC, the High Court held that the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, regulation 5 creates an absolute statutory duty and proof that a defect in equipment had caused an accident would fix the duty holder with civil liability.

• Date:

  31 December 1995

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Barton v Wandsworth Council

  In Barton v Wandsworth Council [1995] ET/11268/94, an employment tribunal ruled that an ambulance driver employed by the technical services division of a local authority was subjected to detriment when, in circumstances of danger that he reasonably believed to be serious and imminent, he took appropriate steps to protect himself or other persons from danger.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employer liable for negligence of third-party subcontractor

  In Nelhams v Sandells Maintenance Ltd and Gillespie (UK) Ltd, the Court of Appeal holds that an employer is liable for an employee whose safety it has entrusted to a third party.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  No civil liability under employers' liability insurance Act

  In Richardson v Pitt-Stanley and others the Court of Appeal holds that the Employers' Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969 does not create a civil, as well as a criminal, liability.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employees witnessing accidents are owed no special duty of care

  The decision of the Court of Session in Robertson and Rough v Forth Road Bridge Joint Board shows that the Scottish courts will be reluctant to extend this duty, and will tend towards a narrow view when deciding claims.

• Type:

  Employment law cases

  Employer liable for stress-related illness

  In Walker v Northumberland County Council the High Court holds an employer liable for the psychiatric damage suffered by an employee after it failed to take reasonable steps to avert a second nervous breakdown.

• Date:

  1 May 1993

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Risk involves no actual danger

  "Risk" is interpreted in a wider sense to convey the possibility of danger, in R v The Board of Trustees of the Science Museum. The Court of Appeal thus upholds the decision of the Crown Court, and notes that a more restrictive definition of "actual danger" would result in "substantial emasculation" of a central part of the HSW Act.

• Date:

  1 January 1981

  Type:

  Employment law cases

  Page v Freight Hire (Tank Haulage) Ltd

  In Page v Freight Hire (Tank Haulage) Ltd [1981] IRLR 13 EAT, the EAT held that the employer was protected by the Sex Discrimination Act 1975, section 51(1) because refusing to allow the employee to transport dimethyl formamide was necessary to comply with the employer's duty under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 and was not an act of excessive caution.