I haven’t got many details at the moment, but the position appears to be that a property development company has refurbished a large unit so it can become multi tenanted. They have installed a ‘small’ Gym in the complex for use by the tenants, but they are not running a gym as such, just providing a room and equipment.


What are the implications here in respect of injury etc, and where does the responsibility / liability lie?

I am of the opinion that the developer/ managing agent is responsible for cleaning, inspecting and maintaining the kit, and that individual tenants / occupiers are responsible for informing their employees of the hazards and risk involved and implementing their own control measures. Not quite the same but I recall reading somewhere that this is the case in respect of lifts in a multi tenanted premise.

Over to you.

Oof - grey matter indeed (don't have much left by this time on a Friday!)

The building owner is not able to check who goes in the gym and have the most control through having the door locked and keys only given to the tenants (I assume?) therefore I suggest that it is up to the mgmt company to give instructions but no further. I would have it within the lease, that the gym is provided for use, will be maintained and serviced as necessary, but that all machines must be used by tenants only and only in the manner in which supposed to be used - provide instructions on each machine. They should also have some basic rules along the lines of no children on machines, children to be supervised in the room at all times, if in doubt, don't use, follow instructions on machines, etc, etc. I don't know this for certain though as it's not a straightforward scenario and hopefully someone more knowledgeable will come along soon.

Thanks for the respones so far.

PH2 - The residents are employees of prospective tenants who will rent indivudual units within the premises and will be allowed access to the Gym. Whilst I agree that it may not fit the category of work equipment, I did give a pointer in my original post that I was interested in the 'Duty of Care' / C ivil Liability angle in the case of an injury - in fact I did not refer to HASAWA or Regulations at all. HSE and LA Inspectors may indeed not take an interest, but a good claims lawyer might. We just need to make sure we have crossed the T's and dotted the I's.

I appreciate you taking the time to respond though.

With regards to civil law and the gym provided, the OLA would require that the building and equipment contained therein is fit for purpose. If people choose to use equipment they do so of their own volition and any injury sustained would most likely be subject to 'volenti non fit injuria' unless some form of negligence can be established.

A claim for negligence would require the injured person to establish they were owed a duty of care and the risk of injury was reasonably foreseeable. I can only think of faulty, ill designed or installed gym equipment could give rise to such a duty.

Given the scenario I don't think it is practical to provide training and supervision for users of the gym and equipment, which would be the case if it was say a commercial activity. That's my take on it anyway.

Not according to PH2 it would appear

Principle regulations would be PUWER and then COSHH (with re. to human effluence – sweat, skin, blood – on equipment).

From a criminal framework the issue of PUWER is a difficult one (per se) as it may not be defined as working equipment – and would be something that the courts would determine – however, if you are a gym user and examine the logic applied to the process of gym-membership, induction to the gym, instruction on the machine, supervision of the space, inspection of equipment etc. it is following the PUWER format.

However, rather than refer to S.’s of HASWA ’74 I thought it may be beneficial if this issue was approached in the boarder context. What are the associated issues to it? As a regular gym-user, meat-head and climber I would set out the following key pointers:

- Use of workout Towel

- Use of appropriate clothing

- Bags

- Workout Times on CV Machines

- Drinks

- Rubbish

- Warm Up & Cool Down

- Free Weights

- Dropping free weights weights on floor

- Gym Access

- Mobile Phones use in space

- Age of user

- Health conditions and how these are checked

- Instruction on equipment

- Inspection, maintenance and serving on equipment

- Records of all associated points

- Cleaning regimes

- Showers (in-situ)

- Spaces for genders

- Occupancy rates and how would be managed

- Risk Assessments

- Use of chalk or magnesium carbonate

- Fire (Emergency Procedures) – remember that many sym users wear ipod etc.

- First Aid provisions (and how these would be raised if not in-situ).

The following HSE Project details such a case - http://www.hse.gov.uk/research/rrpdf/rr476.pdf - when the PDF is open search on the word “gym”.

It may also be worth dropping a line to a couple of practitioners who work as H&S Managers within large gyms – if you need some names I have some in my contacts list and happy to email them through to you.

From a civil liability point-of-view it is also worth looking at the following case - ‘Gym fined for broken neck’ http://webcache.googleus...;source=www.google.co.uk

Conversely, whilst it may be easy to find another business which is supplying a gym-space without having addressed any of these points the question must be asked whether by using an example of negligence it can then legitimize another act of negligence being committed?

Andrew Böber CMIOSH FRSPH FRGS

Apologies typo on that.

I was looking through HSE database and some news sources for criminal procesucations and other areas for civil. The word 'fine' is clearly the give away.

These were the civil issues which I found:

http://www.legal-zone.co.uk/civil-QA67

http://www.irwinmitchell...sGyms/Pages/default.aspx

http://www.pintopotts.co...re-accidents-gym-claims/

B