Suitability of equipment

Horton v Taplin Contracts Ltd (CA TLR 25 November)

An employer is not liable for breach of statutory duty if the equipment he provides is suitable for use by employees by reference to reasonably foreseeable health and safety hazards and is unsafe only if deliberately misused by an employee. Accordingly, the employers were not vicariously liable where the claimant was injured when a scaffolding tower on which he was working was toppled by the deliberate act of a fellow employee, following an altercation. It was clear from the wording of regulation 5 of the Provision and Use of Working Regulations 1992 that the target of achieving suitability for purpose was to be measured by reference to such hazards as were reasonably foreseeable. It was not reasonably foreseeable that the other employee would behave as he did.