Common sense finally prevails with new health and safety ruling for business

Katherine Southby, regulatory solicitor

Businesses struggling under the onerous duties of health and safety legislation will be heartened by a recent Court of Appeal decision which significantly alters the nature and extent of statutory duties owed by non-employers to workers injured while working on their premises.

In what many will see as a welcome application of common sense, use of work equipment in an irresponsible way will now not give rise to liability upon a non-employer even though that person had control of it.

This case of Mason v Satelcom presented a relatively familiar situation. The injured party was employed as a service engineer by an independent contractor. He attended the client company’s premises where he found and used a ladder belonging to the client company to try and access a circuit board to carry out his work. In doing so he fell and was injured.

The Court of Appeal concluded that non-employers cannot be regarded as responsible for an injury caused through improper use of their equipment even though they may have control of, and even have provided, it. The new decision therefore comes as a big relief to those who allow people other than their own employees onto their premises to carry out work.

Before the appeal, the Court previously found that the client company was in control of the work equipment which the injured engineer used – even though he was not employed by them. It also found that even though the equipment was of itself safe, the equipment was used in a foreseeably unsuitable way and the client company was therefore both negligent and criminally liable.

This decision merely served to reaffirm to many businesses that the law had steered too far in one direction, protecting the incompetent and foolish at the expense of a company.

Whilst health and safety obligations remain in place and may still be onerous to some businesses this case is a breath of fresh air. The position is confirmed that a non-employee worker who comes on to your premises and uses your safe equipment in a silly way does not create a liability to you, the host non employer - notwithstanding that equipment was under your control.

The Court recognised that those who have ‘control’ of equipment - for example, by placing it where it is and being able to remove it at any time - are not necessarily able to ‘control how it is used’.

Most welcome this as a more sensible approach as it potentially shifts the criminal sanction that could previously have been imposed on non-employers and reflects what may have been for sometime as a more common sense approach.

For more information please contact Katherine Southby, Head of regulatory, on 0113 227 0394 or email katherine.southby@gordonsllp.com

Published: 6th June 2008

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