Rank: Forum user 
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Imagine a company renting a property from a landlord and occupying all the lower floors. The landlord also rents the roof space to a telephone mast company. The first tenant has a clause in their lease that says they must permit access through the property to access the masts on the roof. The second tenant has no personnel on site. To maintain that their own undertakings aren't affected and that the contractor needs to pass through their operations, the first tenant books the contractor in as working on site.
The contractor falls from the roof and dies due to high winds. Where does liability sit under?
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Rank: Forum user
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Well, I can understand the first tenant booking the contractors in, but I'd have done it as a Site Visitor as they are accessing/egressing through the first tenants workplace and weren't working on premises that they are in control of. One question would be who is the 'Controller of the premises' in the roofspace, sounds like the landlord to me anyway, might be prudent to do an investigation and record your findings, and inform your insurers anyway, as memory fades over time and someone, somewhere, sometime will be asking you questions..
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Rank: Forum user
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The question of 'controller of the premises' is an interesting one. The first tenant operates the day-to-day running of the entire site (except roof space) and just permits access to the roof when the telephone mast company needs to inspect them; the landlord basically has no day-to-day input. The lease puts the first tenant in full position to maintain and repair the building as needed etc. This is a situation at one of our locations. I've asked the insurer and they're of the initial opinion that liability would rest to a certain degree with the first tenant as they're the ones controlling the site daily, but couldn't stipulate to what extent and are referring it to the underwriter for further opinion. I encountered a situation before Christmas whereby the site, in my opinion, had not taken adequate steps to manage contractor work on site, and their response was that it wasn't their contractor, it was the landlord's, and therefore, it was the landlord's responsibility to manage them.
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Rank: Forum user
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Yes, I think this is the sort of thing the lawyers love, as they can keep it going for ages. lol For me, who do the mast company have their agreement/contract with and pay rent to ? If it's the first tenant, (thinking out loud here), I'd want to see RAMS and Insurance stuff before I let the telecom company in, and I'd want prior notice etc. What happens if their network goes down on a weekend and they want access etc etc This sounds almost like a 'gentlemans agreement' on a handshake with the landlord, who'll be (probably), getting some financial benefit from having the mast up there, and he's trying to absolve himself of responsibility and liability, Just IMO of course, allegedly, etc etc etc
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 1 user thanked Pirellipete for this useful post.
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Rank: Super forum user
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Hi FlashingBlade Assuming that the enforcing authority hasn't finished its investigation, then I think that the investigators will be looking fairly closely at ALL he parties, so.... 1. Whoever employs the person who has fallen to their death - or whoever they were working for if self-employed. 2. The telecoms company who is client for the work being done (whether or not No 1) 3. The landlord - who ultimately has control of the roofspace and the roof 4. Tenant of lower floors who have managed to get themselves in a position of being control of access above their demise. 5. Possibly individuals as well. So, your starting point is Sections 2, 3 and 4 of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 assuming this happened in Great Britain. ....and when the lawyers start arguing about a civil claim, all the same people in the frame. The question to ask is which people fall within the interpretation of being a "Neighbour" of the deceased. Donoghue v Stevenson 1932.
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Rank: Super forum user
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I think people are looking at this from a H&S point of view and they are assuming that everybody has a duty of care on the roof not just the telecoms company. I see it differently. The landlord is simply renting a space for the telecom’s masts. They have no responsibility for the work because they are a landlord not a telecoms company and the masts are not their business. Similarly the tenant is simply duty bound to provide access to the roof, in effect an easement. That is where their legal duty ends. If we look at Occupiers liability (1957) and the case of Roles vs Nathan, a landlord hired some sweeps to clean flue. They offered to turn off the boiler, but the sweeps said that was not required. The landlord assumed that the sweeps knew what they were doing so allowed them to proceed and as a result both died of carbon monoxide poisoning. The landlord was exonerated, and no liability attached to them. But what about R vs Octel. In that case Octel hired two casual workers and told them how to clean a reaction vessel with acetone, which meant that Octel took responsibility for the activity which was directly connected to the course of their business which was chemical manufacture. Octel was successfully prosecuted by the HSE, after the acetone vapour ignited in the reaction vessel. Edited by user 11 January 2024 09:22:58(UTC)
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1 user thanked A Kurdziel for this useful post.
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