Posted By Ian Goddard section 6 of the act: genral duties of the manufacturers and supliers. it focuses attention on the role of the producer of the products used at work, and includes designers, importers and hirers-out of plant and equipment in the list of those who have duties under it. the section refers to articles and substances for use at work, and require those mentioned to ensure so far as reasonably practicle that articles and substances are safe when being used in the widest sense. do the transport company put the the article on the pallet and band it?, or do they pick it up from someone else?. may it is best that you both except the blame and come up with a safe system of work for the articles to be transported. regards Ian Goddard

Posted By Frank Hallett Hi Dee You aren't clear as to who sent the item to your site, and it does matter. If the party with ultimate control over how the item was shipped is your company - then the larger portion of liability will lie with you. However, the transporting company also have duties to ensure safe loads during transit and both you and the transporter when off-loading in so far as you both have any control over the load and how it is accessed. If the item was packaged & shipped by a 3rd party; the onus will be firmly upon them in conjunction with the transporter for failing to ensure that the load was suitably "packaged" assuming that it was not reasonably practicable for your FLT driver to safely access the load to ensure that it was sufficiently stable for it to be removed from the vehicle. You don't identify what happened to the housing that fell. Was it damaged? Was it inspected for damage? Has it been put into use without a proper examination? Up to the point where you could not be expected to know that the load was insecure, you have minimum liability from consequent failure of the dropped housing. But if it fails after you should have had it checked for damage, the liability will certainly be almost all yours! Good luck Frank Hallett

Posted By Robert K Lewis Dee My immediate reaction would be to bring your insurers on board if the claim is at all substantial, ie above your excess figure and leave it to the Loss Adjuster to resolve. This will no doubt result in a request for evidential pictures from the carrier of the prior condition of the load bed before it made your drop on the day of the incident. You could follow this line yourself if the value is too low to concern the insurers, (although you still need to inform them of the situation). It sounds to me as though the self weight of the load is being relied upon to ensure the load is stable, the banding may merely be of a "decorative nature", however as has been noted already your competent FLT driver lifted the load and would be regarded as having decided it was secure. The net result of this has to be a fairly close review of your FLT driver training and the methods of work they are using. Do the drivers realise that they are empowered to refuse a load? Also do your purchase orders make it clear to carriers that unstable loads will be refused at no cost to yourself? Bob