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References to and/or interpretations of Health and Safety Regulations - Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd

Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
	Contextual Commentary | Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, at paragraphs 27 to 29, 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.

Moreover, the common law has been supplemented by the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992.

I do not think it necessary to burden this already lengthy judgment with an analysis of the obligations on the employer.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 2	Contextual Commentary | Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, starting at paragraph 32, Mr Recorder Hetherington considers whether the workstation involved negligence and/or breach of statutory duty:

The only matter relied upon is the fact that the Claimant's monitor was situated to her left at an angle which I find to be about 45 degrees.

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. He relied upon the evidence of Mr. North, who did say that he would recommend it as better if the monitor was in front so that the user did not have to look to one side. But that was not a view shared by the ergonomic experts except insofar as it rendered it necessary for the Claimant to turn her head fully to her left. What they meant by that phrase differed. [The expert instructed by the Claimant] said he meant to include within it a 40-45 degree turn for a significant period of time. [The expert instructed by the Defendant] said that he agreed fully on the basis of maximum rotation until it became physically uncomfortable. The Claimant gave evidence that she did not herself feel that the positioning to the left made it uncomfortable at the time. Neither she, nor her employers, knew of her latent cervical spondylosis.

Whether or not it contributed to her injuries, I am not persuaded on the evidence that it was either negligent or in breach of Regulations for the screen to have been sited as it was.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 4	Contextual Commentary | Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, at paragraphs 29 to 31, Mr Recorder Hetherington says:

Given my findings of fact, the Defendants could hardly contend that there has not been a breach of duty. However, I should consider Regulation 4 which provides: Every employer shall so plan the activities of users at work in his undertaking that their daily work on display screen equipment is periodically interrupted by such breaks or changes of activity as reduce their workload at that equipment. In my judgment it is not a sufficient discharge of the employer's duty, to plan under that regulation, to leave the matter entirely in the hands of the employee and content himself merely with not forbidding breaks.

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.

In this case I am satisfied that the Defendants made no attempt to ensure that the Claimant's far too heavy and continuous typing workload was reduced by proper interruption with regular breaks. In this context, I should note that the mere fact that tucked away in the back of a Manual which may have been available on a shelf in the Claimant's office - although I make no finding that in fact the Manual was there - there was an Appendix N (D4) which contained a brief reference to the need to take breaks away from the screen cannot possibly be a sufficient discharge of the Defendants' duty, whether under Regulation 4 or at common law.

I therefore find that the Defendants were negligent and in breach of Regulation 4 in causing and/or permitting the Claimant to work as I find that she did.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 6 & Regulation 7	Contextual Commentary | Wall - v - Bartlett Construction Group Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment in November 2001, starting at paragraph 40, Mr Recorder Hetherington says:

I should mention in passing that the Claimant's pleadings do also contain allegations relating to Regulation 6 (training) and Regulation 7 (provision of information). The Claimant was provided with a User Assessment Form in about July 1995, but she never filled it in and merely put it in her desk because she had questions to ask. Mr. North said that he would give out the guidance booklet (87) with the form, but accepted that he was guilty of some delay in dealing with the Claimant. In fact the Claimant never had any meaningful training, nor was she ever provided with the information referred to in Regulation 7. Accordingly, I am satisfied on the evidence that the Defendants are also in breach of these Regulations, but since they add nothing, on causation issues, to the breach and negligence involved in the workload and work pattern, I see no useful purpose in considering them further and neither party urged me to do so.

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Last updated: 14/05/2013