Manual handling: causation arguments

[TrueBlueTerrier]

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osta v Imperial London Hotels Ltd [01.05.12]

Court of Appeal upholds Defendant’s appeal; Claimant was not able to show that lack of refresher training caused her injury.

Implications

The decision in this case is fact specific. However, it does highlight the importance for defendants of keeping the test for breach of duty distinct from the test for causation, and not confusing them. This is an example of a case in which breach of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 was established, but the Claimant was unsuccessful. The Court of Appeal did not accept that the breach was a cause of the injury.

When dealing with any case involving an alleged breach of duty, defendants and their insurers should always question whether, on the balance of probabilities, the breach was genuinely a cause of the injury. As this case demonstrates, such an argument can provide a full defence to the claim.

Background

The Claimant, who is Portuguese, was employed by the Defendant as a chambermaid. She alleged that she had sprained her shoulder and jarred her neck when moving a hotel bed in order to vacuum underneath it. She alleged that the Defendant was in breach of the Regulations. At first instance His Honour Judge Birtles held:

She failed in her primary case that she had had no training in moving beds and that this one was difficult to move. The Defendant was able to show that the training had been amply good enough, the bed wheels were satisfactory and the carpet was not an impediment.
However, she succeeded on the basis that the Regulations applied, there ought to have been refresher training and this was causative of the accident. This was subject to 35 per cent contributory negligence.

Decision

In the Court of Appeal, Lord Justice Hughes upheld the Defendant’s appeal:

Refresher training was a step which was appropriate to reduce the risk of injury from bed moving to the lowest level reasonably practicable. It was squarely an application of the terms of the Regulations. Such training would have been cheap, easy and eminently practicable.
The real issue was causation. In a case such as this, the test of causation is the simple and purely factual one: was the breach a (not necessarily the only) cause of the injury? The Judge was entitled to find that refresher training would have altered her practice. However, a reminder of the well known straight back bent leg lifting technique would not have prevented this injury. The Claimant’s evidence was that she had pulled, rolled or dragged the bed, rather than having lifted it.

[brothermagrew]

Probably due to a typo error but the brother Teebs has not yet realised that this case was actually between Costa v Imperial London Hotels Limited.

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