Do Not Forget the Common Law
In the posts so far quite a lot has been said about workplace safety law, and very little about common law. This is the so-called judge made law that is vastly more extensive than statute laws. Perhaps a simple annacdote will illustrate the point.
In a different town in a different life I worked as an accountant and we had a client who ran a fairly large panel beating business - lots of sanding of lots of very obnoxious substances. At massive expense the client replaced most of the very good sanding tools with Festool/Protool tools - both electric and air - on account of their much better dust capture. He basically said that the costs of being sued were so high that he could not afford not to improve the dust collection.
He quoted many many actual cases that had got to court and made the following points:
- The employer almost always lost; the courts almost always protect the victim.
- The victim doing something stupid is not a defence. "You employed a stupid person."
- With each case decided, the judges are progressively raising the standards.
- We have to plan for what the law is likely to be in five years time, not what it is now.
Graeme