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Posted By Mark Eastbourne
Good afternoon
The Director of Finance has asked me the following question.
He wants to know if we, as an organisation are liable for a serious accident which occurred to a member of staff who was visiting a site which we do not own but where we send students, and on this occasion was sending the member of staff to a conference when she had the accident.
He seems to think that she will not be able to sue the organisation (not that she would!) and I wondered if anyone could clarify this for me or point me towards some relevant information?
Regards
Mark
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Posted By Heather Collins
Mark
Your director is wrong. This person can of course sue you - as their employer you owe them a duty of care. However it's impossible to say from the detail you give whether you would be liable. It may well be that the third party who own the site would be ultimately held liable. In the event of a claim it's one for your insurers and not one for your directors to get themselves worked up over.
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Posted By Raymond Rapp
Mark
I tend to go along with Heather's assertion. The details you provide are rather vague and presumably you talking about a civil liability. As a rule of thumb criminal liability is normally shared between the proprietor, employer, client etc.
In fact, anyone can make a civil claim regardless of the circumstances. Whether there is any substance in it is another matter and often for the courts to decide. As Heather has already indicated, your company has a duty of care, which would include that you take all reasonably practicable precautions when sending someone on company business. Any special vulnerability e.g. young person, would need extra consideration through a risk assessment.
We are of course discussing a worst case scenario (seem to be repeating myself) and I like people to adopt the principle that it was their son or daughter you were considering. In that case what precautions would a caring parent take?
Ray
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Posted By Bob Shillabeer
Well, Yes and No is the simple answer. It depends on the site they were visiting and the standard of the conference provider. If the provider was a well known and established provider it is reasonable to expect them to have systems in place to inspect the venue used before the conference took place to ensure it was fit for purpose. A less established provider may not have covered the delegates for insurance purposes, etc. Therefore it will fall to the employer as the employer has sent an employee to a place that is not safe. People are quite right in thier assumptions so far, but it is worth remebering the company chose to send someone to the venue so has a responsibility although rather small to ensure it is safe to let their employees use it in the course of work.
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Posted By Mark Eastbourne Many thanks for your responses. The link to the incident I was referring to follows. http://www.iosh.co.uk/in...iew&forum=1&thread=28873The IP was the assistant principal in my college and was with the principal at the time as well as a governor, so they were both witnesses. It is in our Visits and Trips Policy to ask for assessments of the location we send our staff/students to, however, it seems this was not done for this building. The accident itself was highly unlikely. It was caused by a raised edge of 6mm between on the floor between two lift doors. The IP stood in front of these doors with her heels tight to the edge of the raised edge. When the lift doors opened behind her there was no warning sound, the others saw the doors open so stepped forward, the IP stepped back but could not move her feet as the heels were stuck tight to the raised edge on the floor, the result of which was that the centre of gravity in her upper body moved backwards but her feet were not there to balance it out, resulting in her falling straight back injuring her head on the floor. I say the accident was unlikely but this morning as I took the report to the director of finance, I was stepping outside of the building when someone called me, I turned around, had a brief conversation while I the door was open and I was facing the inside the building, when I stoped talking I stepped back only to find my feet were against a raised edge of about 1 centimetre and ended up falling backwards myself, only stopping myself by grabbing the other door! Very ironic. Anyway, my boss and company solicitor are convinced that because the accident happened on another property which we do not own, we are not liable, I maintain that as her employer we had a duty of care. Hope I'm right! Mark
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Posted By Heather Collins
Mark
I still fail to see why your directors are so concerned about this from a financial point of view. If the injured party were to sue the company then in a case like this I would imagine your insurer would wish to involve the insurers of the third party who operate the other site (I have certainly had first hand experience of this kind of process in a civil claim). Either way this is not one for your directors to get worked up about as from the way you describe the incident it does not seem as though there was any failure of your own procedures in this case (I cannot imagine that a risk assessment of a third party premises would have picked this up as a potential risk!) and if a civil claim does result then it is for your insurers to deal with amyway - that's why we have EL insurance.
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Posted By Mark Eastbourne
Hi Heather
I agree completely.
He now wishes for me to carry out a full assessment of the property!
For some reason he seems to have him worried and I have no idea why.
There are plenty other issues I wished he wuld get behind which are far more important.
Nevermind!
Many thanks for your responses!
Mark
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