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References to and/or interpretations of Health and Safety Regulations - Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd

Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62, the Judge considered which of the regulations of the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992 were relevant.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 2	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62a, the Judge says:

Reg 2: This required Trinatours Ltd to perform a suitable and sufficient analysis of the workstation which it provided for Miss Hadoulis for the purpose of assessing the health and safety risks to which she was exposed in consequence its use by her. A review should be carried out if there is reason to suspect that the original assessment is no longer valid or if there has been a significant change in the matters to which it relates. It is not in dispute that no such analysis was carried out.

Following such assessment, had it been carried out, Trinatours Ltd's obligation would have been to reduce the risks identified in consequence of the assessment to the lowest extent reasonably practicable.

In paragraph 81, the Judge says:

It is clear that Trinatours Ltd has been in breach of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations in failing (a) to carry on the assessments of Miss Hadoulis's workstations as required and (b) to give her appropriate health and safety training and information. It does not of course follow from the mere fact of breach of those regulations, however, that Miss Hadoulis's problems were caused by such breaches. It is necessary to see whether, had those regulations been complied with, her problems would have been any different. I shall look at this aspect of the case later as I consider whether there has been any breach of the substantive regulation concerning provisions of a suitable workstation and chair.

In paragraph 84, the Judge says:

I do not consider, either that the breaches of Regulations 2 and 6 have any material consequence. An assessment - which would have been necessary only at the beginning of the period - would not have revealed any problem. It is hard also to see that Health and Safety education would have made any difference in the light of my findings about Miss Hadoulis' s work and working practices which included precisely the breaks and changes of activity which education would have told her to take. It may be that her posture was not as good as it should have been and that education might have warned her about that. But I am wholly unpersuaded on the evidence that a poor posture at a satisfactory workstation (in contrast with the distorting postures which the experts have addressed) could have caused the problems which Miss Hadoulis suffered.

In paragraphs 88 to 92, the Judge says:

So far as Regulation 2 is concerned in this second period, there should have been a further assessment in 1998 when Miss Hadoulis moved to Workstation 2. However, again in the light of my findings of fact, it is unlikely that an assessment would have revealed anything which would have suggested provision of a different workstation or any of its components, save possibly for the chair. In other words, it is possible that an ergonomic chair would have been thought appropriate for Miss Hadoulis. Possible, but unlikely. In fact, Miss Hadoulis was complaining about discomfort and the state of her chair; her complaint, if she has one, must therefore rest, it seems to me, on a breach of Regulation 3. A breach of Regulation 2 will only be relevant, in my judgment, in a case such as the present if compliance with it would have resulted in a different course of action being taken. But the failure to provide an ergonomic chair in the face of actual complaints suggests strongly to me that one would not have been provided even if an assessment had been carried out.

At the beginning of the third period, Miss Hadoulis's workstation was changed. She then had only one screen. There can be no suggestion of continuing need to twist and contort. The complaint can, again, only be about the chair. And for precisely the same reasons as I have already addressed in relation to the second period, I do not think there was a breach of Regulation 2 or, if that is wrong, that the breach has caused Miss Hadoulis' s problems. And for reasons similar to those in relation to the second period, breach of Regulation 2 is of no help to Miss Hadoulis.

I add this in relation to the third period. It is clear that the experts were concerned, correctly in my judgment, principally with the period to January 1999 in terms of the unsuitability of Miss Hadoulis's workstations. There could, realistically, be no serious complaint thereafter. On that footing, Miss Hadoulis would have faced difficulties even if I had held that there was clear breach of Regulation 2 within that period. This is because, intuitively, I perceive a difficulty in saying that upper limb disorders (in contrast with lumbar pain) manifesting themselves only in March April 1999 and then progressively worsening, were caused by postural deficiencies in that period. The evidence on Dr Hicklin did not really explain that to me.

It is not without relevance to consider the position of Miss Hadoulis after she was provided with her ergonomic chair and worked (from about November 1999) at a further workstation about which no complaint is or can be made. Yet, after this, Miss Hadoulis substantially deteriorated with pains in the chest and, in January 2000, further back pain. She gave up all keyboard work in February 2000, and yet in April 2001 she complained that she was worse than ever (although by trial she said she was 50% better whatever that may mean). These factors make me even more doubtful than I already am that Miss Hadoulis's problems can be viewed as caused by any aspect of her workstations which constitute a breach of any Regulations.

I also note one further submission of Mr Platt which seems to me to carry some force. He points out that Dr Hicklin appears, at one point, to suggest that Ms Buchanan's entry ("?fibromyalgia") in March 1998 supports an early sign of fibromyalgia. But if that is right, then causation becomes almost an impossibility: for I have, on the facts, found no breach of the Regulations, and no fault in the chair, up to March 1998 and yet it is at that stage that this preliminary query is raised.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 3	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62b, the Judge says:

Reg 3: this required Trinatours Ltd to ensure that Miss Hadoulis' s workstation met the requirements laid down in the Schedule to the extent specified in paragraph 1 of that Schedule. Paragraphs 1(a), (b) and (c) and paragraphs 2(d) and (e) are relevant and provide as follows:
"1: An employer shall ensure that a workstation meets the requirements laid down in this Schedule to the extent that -

(a) those requirements relate to a component which is present in the workstation concerned;
(b) those requirements have effect with a view to securing the health and safety of persons at work; and
(c) the inherent characteristics of a given task make compliance with those requirements appropriate as respects the workstation concerned.

2:

(d) Work desk or work surface

The work desk or work surface shall have a sufficiently large, low-reflectance surface and allow a flexible arrangement of the screen, keyboard, documents and related equipment.
..............
There shall be adequate space for operators or users to find a comfortable position.

(e) Work chair

The work chair shall be stable and allow the operator or user easy freedom of movement and a comfortable position.
The seat shall be adjustable in height.
The seat back shall be adjustable in both height and tilt.
A footrest shall be made available to any operator or user who wishes one."

In paragraph 81, the Judge says:

It is clear that Trinatours Ltd has been in breach of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations in failing (a) to carry on the assessments of Miss Hadoulis's workstations as required and (b) to give her appropriate health and safety training and information. It does not of course follow from the mere fact of breach of those regulations, however, that Miss Hadoulis's problems were caused by such breaches. It is necessary to see whether, had those regulations been complied with, her problems would have been any different. I shall look at this aspect of the case later as I consider whether there has been any breach of the substantive regulation concerning provisions of a suitable workstation and chair.

Then paragraphs 83 to 87, the Judge says:

In relation to Regulation 3 and the Schedule, there are, I think, three distinct periods to consider. First, from when Miss Hadoulis first started work to when she started to feel discomfort in her chair in spring 1998; second, the period from then to the change of workstation in January 1999; and third, the period thereafter until she started extended sick leave.

So far as the first period is concerned, I have found as a fact that it more likely than not that Miss Hadoulis did not in fact begin to feel discomfort until the spring of 1998 when she first complained to Mr Pitcher. There is no evidence that, before that date, the chair which she was using was in a defective state or, if it was, that it was causing her any discomfort. In these circumstances, I do not consider that there was any breach of Regulation 3. Even if, unknown to anyone and unforeseeably, work at Workstation 1 was causing physiological changes on the way to resulting in disorder of Miss Hadoulis' s central pain processing system (according to Dr Hicklin's theory) there was no breach of that Regulation. Accordingly, I do not consider, either that the breaches of Regulations 2 and 6 have any material consequence. An assessment - which would have been necessary only at the beginning of the period - would not have revealed any problem. It is hard also to see that Health and Safety education would have made any difference in the light of my findings about Miss Hadoulis' s work and working practices which included precisely the breaks and changes of activity which education would have told her to take. It may be that her posture was not as good as it should have been and that education might have warned her about that. But I am wholly unpersuaded on the evidence that a poor posture at a satisfactory workstation (in contrast with the distorting postures which the experts have addressed) could have caused the problems which Miss Hadoulis suffered.

In the second period, Miss Hadoulis was suffering progressively worse discomfort and back pain. Although the physiotherapist's notes in March 1998 record some hand stiffness, this is not a matter of which Miss Hadoulis complained to Trinatours Ltd and actual pain in the hands and arms is not said even by Miss Hadoulis to have begun until much later - in March or April 1999. Miss Hadoulis does not say anything in her evidence about her back pain in this period; although it may be the unspoken understanding that it continued, there is nothing to suggest that it got worse, the real problems developing only through 1999. During this period, Miss Hadoulis moved from Workstation 1 to Workstation 2, the layout of which I have already examined in detail and in relation to which I have made my findings of fact.

The only sustainable complaint in relation to Regulation 3 which Miss Hadoulis could have during this period, on my findings of fact, relates to her chair. I have already held that the time during which the chair was in a defective state was not significant. However, it is apparent that it was not comfortable for Miss Hadoulis.

Does this amount to a breach of Regulation 3 by reference to para 2( e) of the Schedule (requiring the chair to allow "easy freedom of movement and a comfortable position")? In my judgment there is no breach. The chair (apart from the times when out of adjustment) was, objectively, a suitable chair for the use to which Miss Hadoulis had to put it: it was stable and allowed the user easy freedom, of movement. It may not have been a chair in which Miss Hadoulis was comfortable, perhaps in any position: indeed, Miss Hadoulis may not have been comfortable in any chair given her persistent back pain. But the chair did allow a comfortable position in the sense (and this is the sense I consider the Regulation to be concerned with) that it was possible to position the chair so that the user was in an appropriate, or suitable, position to carry out her task and was not required to adopt a position which, for instance, required her to adopt a distorted posture.

However, in case I am wrong on that interpretation, so that there was a breach of Regulation 3, I do not consider that the breach was in any way causative of Miss Hadoulis's problems. I say that because neither the doctors nor the ergonomists gave evidence which would support the view that an uncomfortable chair alone was capable of causing fibromyalgia in this case. There is no explanation at all of how this could be so. In particular, there is no explanation of how discomfort in a chair, in contrast with intensive keyboard use which is not present, could be causative of significant pain in the arms and hands. Far from being persuaded on a balance of probabilities that the problem was caused by the chair, I think it highly unlikely that it was so caused.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 4	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62c, the Judge says:

Reg 4: Trinatours Ltd was obliged so to plan Miss Hadoulis's activities at work that her daily work on display screen equipment (eg the computer screen, keyboard and mouse which she used) was periodically interrupted by such breaks or changes of activity as to reduce her workload on that equipment. It is not in dispute that Trinatours Ltd failed positively to make such plans: but Trinatours Ltd says it was inherent in Miss Hadoulis's work that such breaks occurred naturally.

In paragraph 82, the Judge says:

There has also been a failure to plan Miss Hadoulis' s work so that screen work is periodically interrupted; but it will be apparent from my review of Miss Hadoulis's work and working practices that appropriate interruptions by breaks or changes in activity were inherent and in fact took place. I do not consider, therefore, that there has, at any time, been a breach of Regulation 4.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 6	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62d, the Judge says:

Reg 6: Trinatours Ltd was obliged to ensure that Miss Hadoulis was provided with adequate health and safety training the use of her workstation. It is not in dispute that no such training was provided, a point, it is submitted on behalf of Miss Hadoulis, of real significance since this was Miss Hadoulis's first job and she had no experience of this type of working environment.

In paragraph 81, the Judge says:

It is clear that Trinatours Ltd has been in breach of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations in failing (a) to carry on the assessments of Miss Hadoulis's workstations as required and (b) to give her appropriate health and safety training and information. It does not of course follow from the mere fact of breach of those regulations, however, that Miss Hadoulis's problems were caused by such breaches. It is necessary to see whether, had those regulations been complied with, her problems would have been any different. I shall look at this aspect of the case later as I consider whether there has been any breach of the substantive regulation concerning provisions of a suitable workstation and chair.

In paragraph 84, the Judge says:

I do not consider, either that the breaches of Regulations 2 and 6 have any material consequence. An assessment - which would have been necessary only at the beginning of the period - would not have revealed any problem. It is hard also to see that Health and Safety education would have made any difference in the light of my findings about Miss Hadoulis' s work and working practices which included precisely the breaks and changes of activity which education would have told her to take. It may be that her posture was not as good as it should have been and that education might have warned her about that. But I am wholly unpersuaded on the evidence that a poor posture at a satisfactory workstation (in contrast with the distorting postures which the experts have addressed) could have caused the problems which Miss Hadoulis suffered.

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Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations 1992
Regulation 7	Contextual Commentary | Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 62e, the Judge says:

Reg 7: Trinatours Ltd was obliged to ensure that Miss Hadoulis was provided with adequate information about all aspects of health and safety relating to the workstation and about compliance with its various duties under these regulations. It is not disputed that there was no provision of such information.

In paragraph 81, the Judge says:

It is clear that Trinatours Ltd has been in breach of the Display Screen Equipment Regulations in failing (a) to carry on the assessments of Miss Hadoulis's workstations as required and (b) to give her appropriate health and safety training and information. It does not of course follow from the mere fact of breach of those regulations, however, that Miss Hadoulis's problems were caused by such breaches. It is necessary to see whether, had those regulations been complied with, her problems would have been any different. I shall look at this aspect of the case later as I consider whether there has been any breach of the substantive regulation concerning provisions of a suitable workstation and chair.

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Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992
	Hadoulis - v - Trinatours Ltd | Find Other Cases

In this County Court Judgment on the 1st October 2002, at paragraph 63, the Judge says:

The relevant regulation of the Health, Safety and Welfare Regulations is Regulation 11 relating to the provision of a suitable seat. It does not seem to me that this adds anything in the present case since, if there is a breach of Regulation 11, it will be because of some factor which is also a breach of the Display Screen Regulations.

In paragraph 93, the Judge says:

For similar reasons as I have given in relation to the Display Screen Equipment Regulations, Miss Hadoulis cannot successfully assert a claim under the Health Safety and Welfare Regulations. So far as the claim based on common law negligence is concerned, it is implicit in my findings of fact that there has been no breach of any common law duty of care and, that even if there had been, Miss Hadoulis's condition has not been caused by any such breach. Moreover, even if that were wrong, there is nothing to suggest that, at any material time, it would have been foreseeable, in the light of generally accepted (in contrast with highly controversial) medical knowledge, that the problems from which Miss Hadoulis suffers could have resulted from any deficiency in the layout of Miss Hadoulis' s workstations and the repair of her chair.

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Last updated: 14/05/2013