Norris v W. Moss & Sons Ltd

LORD JUSTICE SOMERVELL, This is an appeal from a decision of Mr Justice stable in an section in which the Plaintiff claimed damages against his employers for personal injuries. He alleged a branch under the Buildings (Safety Health and Welfare) Regulations, 1948. The case concerns scaffolding. The Defendants were setting a new building and put up their own scaffolding. There are a number of regulationswhich deal with seaffolding and this was the type which had to be rigidly connected with the building. There wore vertical and cross pieces and the pieces affired to the building wore known as putlogs. The regulation relied on, or mainly relied on, 1a ma. 10a which provides that the standards or uprights of scaffolds shall be preotically vertical or slightly inclined towards the building.

A few days before the accident the Defendants' foreman in the course of his duty noticed that one of the uprights was out of the vertical and leaning not towards the building but away from it. He took no action believing that from a safety point of view it did not matter. On the day of the accident the Plaintiff and two open were ordered to put on another lift or story to the scaffolding. When the Plaintiff was going to the place whore this week was to be done he noticed, as the foreman had, that this upright was out of the vertical, easy from the building. He decided to put it right himself end the learned Judge has found that this was a proper decision for him to take. He was an experienced man competent in the work, there was on the learned Judge's finding no difficulty about It and if the correct procedure had been followed there was no danger to anyone concerned. The learned Judge sets out the proper procedure and proceeds as follows: "Instead of that before this safety strut was inserted, for some inexplicable reason E he unfastened the couplings of the first platform, on which he was standing, and proceeded to try to pull this strut back into the vertical without having unfastened the couplings at the base and middle. The result was as he pulled it towards him that inevitably there was created a sort of band in this stand and when the pull was released it shot back dragging the putlogs out of the support of the brick wall, and thus causing the platform to collapse and the Plaintiff to fall". The learned Judge describes thismethod as wrong. When the learned Judge was dealing with the Issue at concern law he referred to the fact that the foreman had noticed this upright and done nothing about it. He held that the foresaw should have had the standard attended to before sending people up to A raise the lifts: "But this omission", he says," on the part of the foreman had nothing to do with this accident but it so happened that the Plaintiff observed the position of the standard and was proceeding to do that very thing though in the wrong way which ho would have been doing had the foreman done his duty and directed him to do it". The Judge was finding end I agree that the cause of the accident was the method by which the Plaintiff set about this work and not the failure of the foreman to take steps.

As I have said, the claim was based on an alleged breach of regulations and I have recited the most Important. The Defendants primary defence we are told was based on causation. It was submitted that the departure from the vertical of the standard was not the cause of the accident for the purpose of liability: it was morely the occasion of the work which the Plaintiff took upon himself to do. Daring the course of the hearing below reference was made to the decision of this Court in Berton v. Soaffolding (Great Britain) Ltd. In that case an accident had happened while some scaffolding Was being dismantled and this Court held that the regulation relied on did not apply to the work of dismantling as at the time when the accident occurred. The principle is easily illustrated. Regulation 9 provides that all scaffolds shall be kept secure or placed in position as to prevent so far as is practicable accidental displacement. An occupier clearly could not be convioted of a criminal offence on the ground that the scaffold or part if a scaffold had not been so secured if he was in process of creating it and in doing at the proper time that which theregulation says is to be done. As Lord Justice Hodson put it, certain of the regulations are only applicable to a scaffold in use and cannot be applied to the process when it is being put up so as to comply with the regulations, or to dismantling. The learned Judge thought that that case A covered the present circumstances.

I have come to the conclusion that the claim falls on the point of onusation. On the learned Judge's findings of fact it seems to me plain that the sole cause of the accident was the method which the Plaintiff unfortunately adopted in carrying out the work. With regard to the principle of Sexton's case it seems to be clear that it could and would apply in some cases to the process of Keeping the scaffolding in accordance with the Regulations in between erection and dismantling. I will assume, and this may be the case here, that soaffolding properly erected, as a result of the weather or inevitable wear and tear, requires attention in order to bring it back into a state in which it accords with the regulations. As soon as the defect...