Falls from Height ( roof / scaffolding claim )

Falls from height are the most common cause of death and the second most common cause of major injury to employees. Over sixty per cent of all non-fatal fall from height injuries are due to falls from a low height.

Typical accidents include falls from:

• ladders;
• open edges on scaffolding;
• through fragile roofs;
• falls from vehicles whilst loading or unloading;

Often accidents occur due to poor or non existent training and poor or non existent decisions by management (often termed ‘systems failures’).

Common systems failures are:

• Failure to undertake a suitable risk assessment;
• failure to provide a safe system of work;
• failure to ensure a safe system of work is followed;
• poor or non existent supervision;
• poor or non existent training;
• poor or non existent provision of information; and
• failure to provide and/or use suitable equipment for the job.

Have you been injured at work due to a fall from height?

How do I know if I am eligible to claim?

To help you to decide whether you are eligible for compensation try answering the following simple questions:

• Did you fall from or of something?
• Could the job have been organized to avoid working at height?
• Could more have been done to prevent the fall?
• Could safety equipment have minimized the risk?

IF YOU ANSWERED YES TO ALL THE ABOVE, CONTINUE

There are new Work at Height Regulations, in force from 1st April 2005. The Regulations apply to all work at height where there is a risk of a fall that is likely to cause personal injury. The Regulations state that the following steps should be considered before carrying out any work at height:

If you can avoid working at height then you should do so. Could the job be organized in a different way that either avoids working at height altogether or minimizes the necessity to do so?

If working at height is unavoidable, what steps can be taken to prevent falls by either working from a safe place or by selecting the most suitable equipment.

If there is still a remaining risk of a fall what steps could be taken to mitigate or minimize the effect of such a fall (by the use of harnesses for example).

An employer has a duty to take reasonable care of the safety of his workmen, whether the employers are an individual, a firm, or a company and whether or not the employer takes any share in the conduct of the operation.

The employer’s duty is therefore:

• personal,
• non-delegable
• and continuing.

However the duty is not an absolute duty. The requisite standard is to take reasonable care to protect against foreseeable risk of death or injury. The employer is allowed to weigh the risk to employees as against the cost of providing safeguards.

The reasonable and ordinarily careful employer will be ‘reasonably careful;’ to ensure that he is up to date with health and safety matters (such as making sure risk assessments are up to date) and implementing safety precautions which are proportionate with the risk involved (such as fitting safety guards to machinery and supplying safety equipment to staff).

Vicarious liability

Because the duty to take reasonable care of employees is a non-delegable duty, if one employee is injured due to the fault of another employee the employee can sue the employer for his employee’s faults. This applies so long as the act was done ‘in the course of employment’ as opposed to something wholly outside of his employment (often termed going on ‘a frolic of his own’.

Framework of law relating to breach of statutory duty

Since January 1993 the main framework of statutory duties in the context of workplace health and safety has been the six sets of regulations made to comply with European Directives. The benefit to the claimant is that provided breach of the regulation can be proved, liability for the employer for the consequences of the breach is strict. However many of the regulations are made in terms that the employer has a duty to do all that is “reasonably practicable” which amounts to a similar duty to that of common law negligence. The Management of Health and safety at Work Regs 1999 (often termed the ‘Framework Directive’) lay the foundations in the form of the obligation of the employer to have a Health and Safety Policy and to undertake regular risk assessments into the manner in which it pursues its undertaking. These Regulations and the five sets of subsidiary regulations are colloquially termed ‘the six-pack’ i.e.:

• Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
• Personal Protective Equipment at work Regulations 1992
• Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992
• Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations 1992
• Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992

These regulations are the product of a requirement of the UK legislation to adopt European directives which have the aim of preventing injury in the workplace rather than merely compensating it afterwards. This is the reason why risk assessment is seen as central to the legislation. Many of the regulations are also accompanied by Approved Codes of Practice (ACOPs). These ACOPS do not have the force of law but can be referred to as tending to show what was or is good practice within a particular area. It will therefore be relevant when judging the reasonable ness or otherwise of the conduct of an employer.

Liability of breach of regulations under HSWA 1974

S2 (1) Health & Safety at Work Act 1974 imposes a duty on:

“every employer to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare of all his employees”.

This means that the employer must ensure:

• A safe place to work;
• Safe plant and equipment;
• to work with competent staff;
• a safe system of work;
• proper training;
• proper supervision
  

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