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References to and/or interpretations of HSE Guidance Documents - McFarlane -v- Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd

Safe use of work equipment: Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. L22 Approved Code of Practice and Guidance: 1998
	McFarlane -v- Ferguson Shipbuilders Ltd | Find Other Cases

In paragraphs 33 & 34 of the Judgment of the Outer House, Court of Session on the 16th March 2004, Lady Smith says:

Counsel for the defenders submitted that the case was not, even if the pursuer's assertions of fact were accepted, covered by the regulations. He referred to the guidance notes promulgated by the Health and Safety Executive. In particular, he referred to the notes applicable to regulation 4(3) which give as examples of unsuitability the use of a circular saw in circumstances where a spindle moulding machine would be safer since it could be guarded and of the use of a knife with an unprotected blade in circumstances where scissors would be safer. As these examples showed, he said, the reference in regulation 4(3) to conditions referred to the factual conditions surrounding the use of the tool.

Had I found that the pursuer had had to use to grinder for an excessive length of time and had the pursuer's case been simply to the effect that prolonged use of the grinder was liable to cause injury (which it was not) I would not have been persuaded that such use amounted to a breach of regulation 4(3). The regulations seek to protect employees from equipment which could injure them. "Suitable" in terms of the regulations means suitable "in any respect which it is reasonably foreseeable will affect the health or safety of any person". Accordingly, the obligation on the employer is to ensure that work equipment is only used under conditions which do not involve a reasonably foreseeable risk of the employee being injured by the equipment, as is exemplified in the guidance notes to which reference was made. Even on the hypothesis that prolonged use of an otherwise safe grinder could lead to injury, the pursuer's case under these regulations would, in my opinion, have been bound to fail since the causation of injury by prolonged use of a piece of equipment does not infer the causation of injury by the equipment itself. The problem would not have lain in the provision for that job of that piece of equipment and so would not have been one to which the regulations were directed.

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Last updated: 14/05/2013