DON’T SLIP UP — DEAL WITH YOUR WORKPLACE HAZARDS Yvette McLaughlin and Sam Jackson at Sparke Helmore Lawyers*
Although not often considered as serious as other workplace hazards, slips, trips and falls by workers potentially expose employers to significant liability from both a civil and work health and safety (WHS) perspective.
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t is likely that a court will take a very practical approach to determining whether there were any steps that an employer could have taken to avoid the risk of slipping or falling — the relevant question in both the civil and work health and safety jurisdictions. In determining whether an employer is liable for a slip, trip or fall, a court will consider whether the employer failed to provide a safe system of work, as well as the cost and nature of any steps that could have been taken by the employer to reduce the risk of injury to the employee. Statistics indicate that the prevalence of slips, trips and falls in Australian workplaces is very high when compared to other causes of workplace injury. For example, WorkSafe Victoria has noted that slips, trips and falls result in thousands of injuries every year, with the most common injuries being musculoskeletal injuries, cuts, bruises, fractures and dislocations. The most recent data compiled by WorkSafe Victoria indicates that in the 2009/2010 year more than 3100 Victorian workers suffered serious injuries as a result of a slip, trip or fall in the workplace. While Safe Work Australia concluded that during this period “falls on the same level” were the third most
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common way for workers to be injured at work, accounting for approximately 11% of all male workplace injuries and 17% of all female workplace injuries, [1] the real figures are likely to be even higher given the prevalence of underreporting in non-industrial workplaces, such as offices.
Duty of care The duty of care owed by an employer to its employees was stated in the High Court case of Czatyrko v Edith Cowan University [2005] HCA 14 (at [12]): “An employer owes a non-delegable duty of care to its employees to take reasonable care to avoid exposing them to unnecessary risks of injury. If there is a real risk of injury to an employee in the performance of a task in a workplace, the employer must take reasonable care to avoid the risk by devising a method of operation for the performance of the task that eliminates the risk, or by the provision of adequate safeguards. The employer must take into account the possibility of thoughtlessness, or inadvertence, or carelessness, particularly in the case of repetitive work.” The primary duty contained in WHS legislation for obligations arising out of slips, trips and falls applies with similar effect
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