Hi. just a quick one if anyone can shed any light. I have seen an e-mail from a company my partner works for that says they will not be responsible for any accidents injuries etc. sustained whilst on the way to or from work. My partner has walked to get in because of the conditions. If she follows the disclaimer and thinks it is not safe to go to work she may be disciplined!!! what are peoples thoughts...

The company are right, travelling from home to normal place of work, the company has no responsibility. However, it's different for field operatives who visit customer/service user locations, where depending on contract they may be considfered at work from the time they leave home. Also things are different if travelling from home to a non-normal place of work (e.g. "Can you go and help out in the Manchester office tomorrow?") Hope this helps

"The company are right, travelling from home to normal place of work, the company has no responsibility". In general I would tend to agree, but can I throw a small spanner inthe works - Produce Connection?

What if the place of work is 4hrs drive then the operatives are tired from driving, carrying out a 8hr, 10hr, 12hr shift then needing to travel home. Does the employer then have some responsibility JMC

Surely if an employer is aware of the weather conditions and insists their staff either walk in, or keep them in work so late that it is impossible for them to get home safely, the employer would have a duty of care and be vicariously liable because they are fully aware of the circumstances?

Mr H&S I presume your 4hrs is because the journey is extended. If not then the generaql requirements of the Working Time Directive and the subsidiary local legislation apply (ie if working day + travel time exceeds 11 hrs then employer cannot compel round trip). Back in 1970s my shift started at 2300 on Friday and finished at 1200 on the following Monday. Canteen larder was empty though!!!! Bob

Sean, I don't think this is really a H&S issue. Its down to the "reasonableness" of disciplining someone for not getting into work.

The responsibility for getting to work rests with the employee and not the employer. Going to or from your regular place of employment during normal, routine travel. Normal routine travel includes travel at irregular hours due to late shifts,overtime,special or emergency work. etc Allan

Sean, If I am thinknig of the same case as you describe the circumstnaces do not refer to commuting to a single place of work. The firm was something like kitchen fitters thus requiring employees to travel to different places of work. In such circumstances the travel to the place of work is regarded as being "in the course of employment". The employer has H&S responsibilities in law and the employee is entitled to make a civil claim following injury. But as previous posters have described that is not the same as someome who travels every day to the same place of work, such as factory or office. Commuting does not fall within or under H&S legislation and any civil claim would simply be turned down by the employer's insurer. Phil

The employer has no duty of care by asking people to attend for work. How come every time we get a bit of cold weather people want to stay off. If you don't want to attend because of the weather either phone in sick or ask for annual leave. It's not the employers fault that the weathers bad. Maybe at your tribunal you could try claiming that you never attended because it was an act of god.

Phil, the employee was on his way home when the accident occurred, he was not in works time, his employer was still found to be liable due to the long hours he was working, and the employer was fully aware, that is why they were prosecuted. Kate, a friend of mine in work, spoke to me yesterday as his fathers employer (a local authority in Scotland) had insisted he walked over 3 miles to work in terrible conditions, when he arrived at work he was unable to do any work and had to sit in the staff canteen almost all day even though the weather was getting worse. The employer was fully aware that he would also have to walk back home, in those circumstances without any doubt the employer would be liable. Looks like we will have to agree to disagree on this subject, my mind isn't for changing!

If I could just go back to the original post and my response at #5. The original post said "..they will not be responsible for any accidents injuries etc. sustained whilst on the way to or from work..". The fact is that no one can avoid responsibility or liability simply by saying that they will not be responsible, that would be an absolute nonsense. The fact is that they MAY be HELD to be responsible and liable depending on the facts and circumstances of the case. I think it is wrong to suggest that an employer has NO responsibility or liability. As I have said, in general I suggest that for the majority of the time and in the majority of situations, an employer would not NORMALLY be responsible for an employees commute to and from work, but I suggest that there are some circumstances, already alluded to, where they may be responsible and may incur both criminal and civil liability. I believe that the Produce Connection case is a case in point.

Teh Just because someone (the BBC) says something it doesn't make it true. This is part of the myth culture that the daily Mail trots out & why David young was ever involved in H&S. Unless employees are at work then the employers responsibility starts & ends at the premises threshold. What sounds morally right & what's law are not ther same thing

I am with Kate on this one - it is quite clearly an employment rights issue because if an injury occurs to a person trying to get to work then it happens when they are not at work. Clearly the neither the HASAW Act nor any of the SI's apply. The employee may well have a case at civil law for damages if the employer has applied undue pressure and they are injured, and they could have a case at an employment tribunal for restoration of any pay that may be docked. There does also appear to be some confusion here about the term vicarious liability. An employer can only be vicariously liable for an act of his employee if they are acting in the course of their employment. A person travelling to work is not acting in the course of their employment so vicarious liability does not apply.

And in any case vicarious liability doesn't apply unless an employee has harmed someone else. In this scenario the concern is for the employee being injured themselves - if the employer was indeed liable, it would be ordinary direct liability not vicarious liability at all.

OK, I stand corrected on the Vicariously liable issue, I accept I was wrong with my definition, However in the circumstances I stated earlier I still think the employer will be responsible.

Sean, we all have our moments, but you know just because you think the employer will be responsible doesn't mean a court will.

Sean (& others) I was referring to the first of the cases in the extract below. It may have been that you had in mind the second. However, I think that there is a clear disctinction between both of these cases and the commuting to work scenario. Where work related driving is concerned - covering, in my opinion, delivery drivers, perpatetic workers ranging from district nurses to mobile kitchen fitters and all those covered by HGV/LGV type licenses there is a management responsibility. But I do not think there is any management responsibility for normal travel to a single place of work, something that ones does every day, from home to place of work i.e. the "daily commute". Phil Source: http://www.eltraining.co..._newsletters_three.php#e There has been another case where an employer has been sued following a road traffic accident involving an employee driving home. Mr Eyres worked for Atkinsons Kitchens and Bedrooms. Late one evening, after working a 19-hour day and driving hundreds of miles he crashed his van. He was not wearing a seatbelt and suffered a serious spinal injury in the accident, which left him tetraplegic. Just before the accident, Mr Eyres had been texting on his mobile phone while driving at high speed. The accident occurred when he had to brake suddenly and lost control of the van. He complained that the company was liable because it had caused or allowed him to drive when he was too tired. The court concluded that the accident was probably caused by Mr Eyres falling asleep, rather than using his mobile phone. Atkinsons encouraged a long-hours culture and had been negligent by requiring him to drive in such circumstances and doing nothing to guard against the risk of injury. Employers must ensure they comply with their duty of care to employees, including meeting the requirements of the Working Time Regulations. Risks taken by an employee may reduce the compensation (contributory), but employers can still be liable if their overall framework, monitoring and managing of safety is inadequate. Exemptions or opt-outs from the Working Time legislation are just that, they are not exemptions from the wider health and safety or negligence issues. Ensure that your risk assessments include those driving on company business, particularly where they may be driving after a long working day. You may recall from an earlier Newsletter that in June 2006, The Produce Connection of Cambridgeshire, a potato farming company, was fined £30,000 with £24,000 costs at Cambridge Crown Court after one of its workers crashed his van into a lorry and died whilst driving home. He had just completed his third consecutive working shift of nearly 20 hours and was thought to have fallen asleep at the wheel from fatigue.

Here's my answer on the back of a fag packet. As I said above, someone who has worked excessive hours has been at work, their employer has responsibility for their hours, their resultant fatigue is due to their work, and therefore of course their employer can be liable for the consequences. In the current scenario, the risks have nothing to do with the work activity but are part of the commute.