Rittal fined £15,000 after maintenance worker loses 2 finger

Darren Robins was working at the Rittal CSM plant in Roborough when his fingers got caught in machinery as he was trying to clean it on 1 May 2012.
The circumstances were:

• Mr Robins was clearing paint that was clogging up the machinery 
• He removed the guard of the paint spraying booth to clean the chain
• He asked another employee to turn on the machine so he could see if the chains were moving freely. His fingers got caught in the chain. 
• Mr Robins lost the ends of his fingers and surgeons were unable to reattach them.
• No risk assessment had been carried out for maintenance procedures and there was no suitable way to isolate the machinery when maintenance was carried out.

Rittal CSM of Broadley Park, Roborough, pleaded guilty to a breach of Regulation 3 of The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The company was fined £10,000 and ordered to pay costs of £5,478.

TheHSE Inspector said:
"Working with any moving machinery creates risks to workers and it is vital that assessments are carried out and instructions are in place so employees know how to do their work safely. Mr Robins' injuries could have been much more serious and the loss of the tips of his fingers have not only caused him a lot of pain and distress but also meant there are many simple tasks he cannot perform as easily as he did before."

Source: HSE 30th April 2013

Company fined £133,000 after "fireball"

SAFC Hitech Ltd., a chemical firm in Bromborough, has been fined £133,000 (inc. costs) after an employee sustained severe burns when he was engulfed by a fireball.
The circumstances were:

• The company had been manufacturing a chemical called trimethylindium, or TMI, which is used during the production of LEDs and in the semi-conductor industry.
• Waste from the purification process had been left on a bench to deactivate in an unsealed glass bottle, despite being explosive if it is exposed to air or water.
• Shortly after starting his shift, the worker entered the waste deactivation area and the waste in the glass bottle exploded, sending shards of glass across the yard. 
• The company had failed to carry out a suitable risk assessment for dealing with the waste produced by the TMI purification process, 
• There were failings in supervision and monitoring, 
• The company had failed to ensure the safety of employees.

The company were prosecuted under the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002 and the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974.

The HSE Inspector said:
"One of SAFC’s employees has suffered burns that will affect him for the rest of his life, and has so far been unable to return to work due to the extent of his injuries. The procedure the company had for dealing with waste produced from the TMI purification process was inadequate, and staff were not sufficiently supervised or monitored. The chemical they were handling was spontaneously combustible on contact with water or air, but SAFC did not have a suitable risk assessment in place that complied with the Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations for managing the extreme risks. The chemical industry has the potential to be extremely dangerous, which is why it’s vital the highest standards of health and safety are followed. SAFC fell well below those standards in this case."

Source: HSE 29th April 2013

Tool hire company fined £27,000 for faulty electrical equipment

Arrow Tools, a tool supply company has been fined £27,000 (inc. costs) for endangering workers after neglecting to maintain electrical systems and equipment.
The circumstances were:

• Tools including power hammers and grinding machines, as well as fixed electrical systems, were so poorly maintained  that they presented immediate and potentially fatal risks to employees.
• The failings were identified by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) during an inspection on 19 November 2009
• The HSE served four Improvement Notices on the company, including one to improve management arrangements, over an 18 month period.
• Despite two extensions being granted to comply with the terms of the notices, subsequent investigations in 12 Nov 2010 and 7 April 2011 found there were still insufficient arrangements to properly manage risks.

After the hearing, HSE inspector Peter Burns said:
"It is important that companies recognise and acknowledge the risks posed by poorly maintained electrical systems, which could ultimately result in death – as was the real danger here. The best way to ensure that these and other risks are controlled is to have effective management systems in place. Arrow Tools were served several Improvement Notices, including one in relation to their management arrangements, and were given ample time to comply. Yet they failed to do so and put their employees at risk for an extended period of time in the process. Companies have a legal duty to protect the health and safety of their employees and other around them and this includes complying with improvement notices."

Source: HSE HSE-E-018/13

Example of why removal of strict liability makes sense

Some claim that the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill, part of which removes strict liability is "a return to Victorian times" and there is no such thing as a compensation culture. Here's an example of why the removal makes sense.

A manager at a high street fashion shop is suing her employers for more than £1 million in damages, claiming she suffered crippling injuries while bending down to pick up a dropped earring.

Safaa Pate, 31, was. running a concession at the 'High Wycombe branch of House of Fraser in January 2009, when she says she suffered "irreparable" back injuries while moving a display unit to retrieve an earring. 

In a writ lodged at the High Court in London she said she had to undergo a spinal fusion operation and was left with no feeling in her left leg and foot. She also said that she had not been able to work since. She is suing Coast Fashions Ltd, of Stanton Harcourt, Oxon, the owner of the concession. Caroline McColgan, her barrister, claimed Coast was guilty of breaches of health and safety legislation and had "failed to take reasonable steps to provide her with a safe system of work".

The company denied any wrongdoing, and said Ms Pate from Bray, Berks, "should have used a stick" to retrieve the dropped earring and argued she was "the author of her own misfortune."

Coast admitted that it "owed Ms Pate a duty of care as her employer at the material time" but denied responsibility for any harm she suffered. Lawyers for the company said: "Ms Pate's work was light work. She had to move clothes but she was not required to lift or carry anything of substance. It is denied she was required to move the gondolas or that this formed any part of her employment."

The case is expected to come to trial in November

Source: Daily Telegraph 26th April 2013

House of Lords votes to change Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill

The House Of Lords has voted to overhaul the law that makes employers liable to pay compensation to injured employees if they have breached statutory health and safety duties.  This overcomes the setback in October 2012.

The amendment to the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill is intended to address the perception of a compensation culture and employers’ fear of being sued that this is said to generate.

Arguments for the amendment
Viscount Younger of Leckie said this fear “drives employers to overimplement the law, incurring unnecessary costs, and that undermines their confidence to grow and develop their businesses. It is not reasonable or fair that employers should be held liable to pay compensation when they have done nothing wrong and taken all reasonable steps to protect their employees. The reform does not undermine core health and safety standards”.

Arguments against the amendment
Lord Hardie stated that this would be to deprive some people of any remedy of injury caused to them, or their deceased relatives, with the financial burden transferred from insurance companies and on to “widowers, children, the permanently disabled and the state”.

He also argued that it is not correct to categorise a breach of a statutory duty as “doing nothing wrong” and that the majority of health and safety regulations present the employer with the opportunity to defend himself, and thereby avoid, liability to pay damages, by showing that he took all reasonably practicable steps to comply with regulations.

Background

The change will result in the removal of the 'strict liability' regime that makes companies automatically liable for some workplace injuries, regardless of fault. Once in force, individuals will have to be able to prove negligence on the part of the company before being able to pursue a claim. The Health and Safety at Work Act currently imposes civil liability for breaches of statutory duty in relation to health and safety regulations regardless of whether a business did anything to cause the breach or acted negligently.

In the Commons in October, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Skills Matthew Hancock said: “Prof Löfstedt identified the unfairness that can arise when health and safety at work regulations impose a strict duty on employers that makes them liable to pay compensation to employees injured or made ill by their work, despite all reasonable steps having been taken to protect them from harm. Employers can, for example, be held liable for damages when an injury is caused by equipment failure, even when a rigorous examination would not have revealed the defect. The new clause is designed to address that and other unfair consequences of the existing health and safety system. The result of ensuring that employers who have taken all reasonable precautions cannot be sued for a technical breach will be to reduce the impression among many businesses, especially small firms, that they are liable to health and safety legislation in many cases when they are not”.

P Chambers comment
Whilst some have said that this is "a return to Victorian times", in principle it is to be welcomed. Whether or not there is actually a compensation culture, the perception is that it exists, and this drives some of the silly precautions that are taken.  Tackling this problem will have far more of an effect than the recent pruning of 13 regulations. However, the devil will be in the detail of how this is implemented.

Prosecutions taking "years"

An article in The Scotsman has complained that health and safety prosecutions taken an excessive length of time to get to court and this puts great stress on all involved.

I agree with this. With cases in which I have been involved as an expert witness, and the cases I report in my blogs, the time taken to get to court runs into years.  One company, where I was an expert witness at an inquest and Crown Court case took 2 years from the date of the accident and the inquest and a further 2 years to get to Crown Court.  This was a case where the deceased person had acted against the specific instructions of  the Production Director given on the previous day. Both he and the  Managing Director were under great strain for these 4 years.

Gloucester company fined over fall

Mekufa (UK) Ltd., were fined after a fall from height of one of their employees.
The circumstances of the accident were:

• The employee, Roger Bouskill was dismantling a large dis-used oven, the flue of which extended into the ceiling space.
• Sections of the flue were being removed using a cage fitted to a forklift truck.
• Mr Bouskill left the cage to get onto the roof of the oven.
• As the stack was being moved, it toppled and knocked him to the ground 2.5m below
• There was no documented plan of how to do the work
• There was no risk assessment.
• There was no supervision for this or any other removal work
• The forklift truck driver was not trained to do so.

Mekufa were prosecuted on 22nd April 2013 under the Work at Height Regs. and fined £5,569 (inc. costs) .

The HSE inspector stated: "Mr Bouskill sustained a serious injury and could have died as a result of the fall. The dangers of working at height are well known, yet incidents of this kind occur all too often. The fall could have easily been prevented if Mekufa (UK) Ltd had assessed the risks and put simple measures in place to minimise them. An appropriate plan would have also ensured that those undertaking the work were appropriately supervised and competent. This prosecution should serve as a reminder to all companies who expect their employees to work at height of their legal duties to manage safety and provide the protection required to safeguard them from falls."

Source: HSE