WRULD Claims heard in England, Scotland and Wales
References to and/or interpretations of HSE Guidance Documents - Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd
| Display Screen Equipment Work: Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992. Guidance on Regulations: L26 1992 | |
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| Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd | Find Other Cases | |
In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, at paragraph 27, Mr Recorder Hetherington says:
The Defendants have a duty to take reasonable care to see that their employees are not injured. In this area, that means that they must take care to organise and control the workload and pattern of work of secretaries doing keyboard work to prevent so far as reasonably possible those workers sustaining musculo-skeletal injuries. For many years prior to 1995 there has been a host of guidance given to employers about the risks from keyboard work. Some of the guidance is in the Trial Bundle, but I have also been provided with the H&SE Guidance on Regulations L26 ("the H&SE Guidance"). Plainly, it was reasonably foreseeable to an employer that if he failed to take the necessary steps his employee might sustain an injury; and, of course, it is not necessary that he foresaw the precise type of injury (and there are many) in fact sustained. I do not understand any of the above to be in dispute in this case.
V1.01
In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, when considering whether the workstation involved negligence and/or breach of statutory duty, Mr Recorder Hetherington says, at paragraph 33:
Although there is a mass of requirements and recommendations about the workstation in the schedule to the Regulations and in guidance documentation generally, there is a complete silence about the horizontal positioning of the screen (i.e. central as opposed to one side). Given the extent of guidance on almost everything else, it can only be assumed that this is because it is not thought that positioning to one side involves any risk to health. Whether or not it does is a matter which was canvassed with the medical experts, and I shall have to return to the point later in the judgment. [Counsel] for the Claimant, asserted that the employer, having the obligation under Reg. 2(3) to reduce the risks identified in a workstation analysis to the lowest extent reasonably practicable, ought to have had the screen in the centre. He said that the risk was lower if the screen was in the centre and it was easy to do.
V1.01
In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, at paragraph 29, Mr Recorder Hetherington says:
No doubt it is proper and sensible to devise a variety of tasks, some away from the keyboard, and then encourage the employee to organise his own work so as to reduce his workload by proper breaks - see, e.g. paragraphs 46 and 47 of the H&SE Guide. But the employer must be alert to the possibility, as in fact happened here, that the circumstances are such (whether because of work culture, volume of work or whatever) that breaks are not being taken and workload is not being reduced. He must then intervene and be more pro-active in seeing that the ob1ectives (of work interruption and reduction) are achieved.
V1.01
Last updated: 14/05/2013