HSE setback in unforeseeable risks case

HSE setback in unforeseeable risks case

Employers should not be found negligent on health and safety grounds when employees are acting outside their remit, the Court of Appeal has ruled. The decision is a setback for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), which had argued that employers should be required to take reasonable steps against unforeseeable risks and that negligent actions by employees are irrelevant to the guilt of an employer. The ruling came in a case in which two workers employed by engineering firm HTM Limited died on the A66 near Scotch Corner after equipment they were using came into contact with an overhead electricity cable. HSE is prosecuting HTM and appealed on two points of law, relating to whether the 'foreseeability' of events and the actions of employees can be used in an employer's defence. HSE argued it was irrelevant that the company could not have foreseen what was going to happen and that the accident was caused by the employees acting outside their remit, ignoring their training and acting contrary to warning signs on the work equipment. Steffan Groch of DWF Solicitors, which represented HTM, said: 'The Court Of Appeal has come to the right conclusion in its analysis of the law. To view matters otherwise would be to drive a cart and horse through long-accepted good practice in health, safety and risk management.' An HSE spokesperson told Risks the case would be referred to the Lords. 'While the Court of Appeal found against the prosecution on two points of law it acknowledged that these are important issues and as a result, certified two questions as being of particular public importance that might now require the consideration of the Judicial Committee of the House of Lords,' he said. 'HSE therefore intends to invite the House of Lords to look at those questions and to provide definitive guidance.'

• DWF news release. Personnel Today.