During work, an employee slips on a battery and falls down the stairs. The employee holds his employer liable for his personal injury as a result of the occupational accident. The court in The Hague (LJN: BW2526) has recently ruled.
The accident at work
The employee worked as a temporary worker at a company that processes batteries. His function was to sort batteries and his workplace was located on a kind of balcony. To reach the workplace, the employee had to climb a steel staircase.
It is important to report that the employer had placed a warning sign at the bottom of the stairs with the text:
Please be careful!
Despite all the safety measures we take, it can still happen that there are batteries on the stairs.
On the day of the occupational accident, the employee was working on the balcony again. When lunchtime arrived, the employee left the balcony via the stairs. About halfway up the stairs, the employee fell and slid down the stairs on his back. The employee immediately informed his supervisor of his fall and that he had slipped on a battery on the stairs.
See also: industrial accident temporary worker
See also: fall during work
The position of the employer
The employee holds his employer liable, saying that he slipped on a battery on the stairs. The employer, on the other hand, denies that the employee slipped on the battery. In short, the cause of the accident is disputed.
The employer also states that he has taken sufficient safety measures so that he is not liable for the employee’s injury. For example, the employer issued a warning, issued safety shoes, was inspected three times a day and the workplace was approved by the labor inspection.
Dangerous workplace
First of all, the judge rules that the employee has sufficiently proven that there were regular batteries on the stairs. This is an important starting point as it assumed a dangerous situation in the workplace. Incidentally, from a legal perspective, the employee does not have to prove the exact circumstances of the occupational accident! Uncertainty about the question of how the occupational accident occurred is the responsibility of the employer.
The duty of a safe workplace
The employer then has a duty to ensure that working conditions are as safe as possible. This means that an employer must take measures that are reasonably necessary to prevent personnel from having an accident at work . It follows from case law that an employer must do a lot with regard to safety in the workplace and that it will not easily be assumed that the employer has fulfilled his duty of care (read more about the employer’s duty of care ).
Safety precautions
The employee believes that the employer should have taken more measures to prevent batteries from ending up on the stairs. And also that the batteries that were on the stairs should have been cleaned up immediately.
The court finds that the stairs were placed exactly under the balcony and the treadmill, which sometimes caused batteries to fall from the treadmill onto the stairs. With this, the employer has taken the risk that employees could slip on the stairs due to batteries. Although the employer had taken some safety measures (safety shoes, warning sign and inspection rounds), these were not sufficient in the eyes.
The employer should have taken more effective safety measures to prevent batteries from ending up on the stairs; for example, the stairs should not have been placed directly under the treadmill, a higher edge should have been placed around the treadmill and a net should have been hung under the treadmill to catch the batteries.
What is also important in the judgment of the court is that an employer must be aware that employees who deal with dangerous situations every day become accustomed to this and therefore no longer exercise the necessary caution.
In short, the employer has taken insufficient safety measures and must pay for the injury damage caused by the occupational accident.
More information about employer’s liability ?
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