Mains v Uniroyal Englebert Tyres Ltd
| Jurisdiction | Scotland |
| Judgment Date | 01 June 1995 |
| Date | 01 June 1995 |
| Court | Court of Session |
Inner House of the Court of Session
Before Lord Sutherland, Lord Wylie and Lord Johnston
Scots law - factories - duty to provide safe workplace - foreseeability not necessary
Aside from any questions of a defence of reasonable practicability, the duty of an employer under section 29(1) of the Factories Act 1961 was to make and keep a place of work safe from risks or dangers regardless of whether or not they were foreseeable.
An Extra Division of the Inner House of the Court of Session so held, allowing a reclaiming motion by Mr Neil Mains against an interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary pronouncing decree of absolvitor in favour of Uniroyal Englebert Tyres Ltd in an action of damages brought against them by Mr Mains, recalling the interlocutor of the Lord Ordinary, and pronouncing decree of damages in an agreed sum.
Section 29 of the 1961 Act provides: "(1) Every … place (at which any person has at any time to work) shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be made and kept safe for any person working there."
Mr Hugh Campbell, QC, for the reclaimer; Mr Derek Emslie, QC and Miss Laura Dunlop for the respondents.
LORD SUTHERLAND said that the pursuer had been injured while working with a machine in his employers' factory. He had been injured when a part of the machine had moved unexpectedly.
The employers had not pleaded a defence that it had not been reasonably practicable for them to comply with section 29(1).
After proof, the Lord Ordinary had held that the movement of the machine could not be explained and had been quite unforeseeable and on that ground had rejected the pursuer's case under section 29(1).
The defenders had not challenged the relevancy of a case being made under section 29, although it might seem slightly strange that Parliament had made detailed provision relating to the safety of machinery in such provisions as section 14, but those sections could be bypassed by recourse to section 29(1) when an accident occurred by reason of some unsafety of a machine.
The issue between the parties could be simply stated, namely, whether reasonable foreseeability was a necessary prerequisite in the determination of whether or not a place of work had been made and kept safe within the meaning of section 29(1). The issue had been the subject of a number of decisions, both in Scotland and England and unfortunately there was a substantial divergence...
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- Mains v Uniroyal Englebert Tyres Ltd
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Dow v Amec Group Ltd
...1 AC 410; [1982] 2 WLR 982; [1982] 2 All ER 298 Mains v Uniroyal Englebert Tyres Ltd (No 1) 1995 SC 518; 1995 SLT 1115; 1995 SCLR 819; [1995] IRLR 544 Nimmo v Alexander Cowan & Sons Ltd 1967 SC (HL) 79; 1967 SLT 277; [1968] AC 107; [1967] 3 WLR 1169; [1967] 3 All ER 187; 3 KIR 277 Page v Sm......
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Dugmore v Swansea NHS Trust and Another
...Inner House of the Court of Session reached the same conclusion for essentially the same reasons in Mains v Uniroyal Englebert Tyres Ltd [1995] IRLR 544. Neither decision was directly concerned with how foreseeability of risk might come into the question of what it was reasonably practicabl......
- Peter Michael Barnes v Abbey National Plc [CA (Civil), 31/10/2002]