Apologies if this question has been asked previously but my trawl of the archive didn't reveal any suitable topics. I am wondering (hypothetically), what the likely outcome would be if a safety professional suffered a personal injury during the course of their employment, and brought a claim for negligence against their employer. I appreciate that an employer owes the same duty of care to all employees but I'm not sure whether as a safety professional, their training, knowledge and experience would be taken into account. Your thoughts and/or experiences would be most welcome.

I would agree, it shouldn't be treated any differently. It would ultimately depend on the circumstances of the accident and any negligence from the injured person.

Interesting question and I think kdrum hit the nail on the head (so to speak) - if the injury was theresult of negiligence by the safety professional e.g. deficiencies with hazard identification and control, any claim could be counter-productive..........and certainly wouldnt do their career any good.

Andrew Phil Rose is almost right - the civil area of the law is simple Did that person owe you a duty of care - case precedent says that if you are an employee - yes Was there an injury or loss - if you were hurt during an accident at work - yes Were the company negligent (a tort) - dont know the case but a solicitor will advise - i would suggest that you already know if they were at fault or not. Can they offer up contributory negligence - only if you have violated some kind of rule or taken it upon yourself to do something out of character with your employment - if you are a safety professional this is doubtful In my experience even if there is contributory negligence of the highest order the highest contrib i have seen in 16 years is 45% (and the solicitors thought that was a "result", so this should not put you off. Therefore to answer your question you have the same rights as everyone else to claim, and they cannot use contributory negligence for your knowledge or job unless you have done something that violates any rules you have been part of putting in. For example if you have put in a housekeeping policy and slipped on a pallet left out by another person the company would be looking at 100% liability due to being held vicariously liable for the actions of the person who left out the pallet - if it is a pallet you have left out yourself you would start to have difficulty, you have left the pallet out in breach of a policy written by you , knowing what concequences may befall you. I am not sure but this may be the definition of volenti non fit injura - but i am on my fourth glass of wine and trying to answer from memory Hope this helps Martin