Gillies v Glynwed Foundries Ltd, 1977 SLT 97
Citation: Gillies v Glynwed Foundries Ltd, 1977 SLT 97
Rule of thumb: Where there is a risk of very serious injury, do more precautions have to be taken? Yes, where there is a high risk of injury, particularly serious injury, far more precautions have to be taken – the question is not always whether precautions were taken, the question can more often be whether the precautions taken were sufficient or clear enough.
Judgment:
where there are potentially serious injuries that can be sustained, more money and more effort has to be invested in preventing injuries, ‘The idea of ‘reasonable practicability’ necessarily implies that a balance should be struck between the degree and quality of risk of injury in the circumstances arising out of the appearance and presence of an object on the factory floor against the expenditure of time, effort and money in providing measures to eliminate or materially reduce that risk. If such a balance is to be struck…, then it is impossible to eliminate wholly the element of foreseeability from the assessment of the degree and nature of the risk of injury involved as a consequence of an object reaching the floor and becoming an obstacle to passage, and thereafter in reaching a decision as to the practicability and reasonableness in the circumstances of adopting measures designed to eliminate or at least materially lessen the risk in question… [Y]ou must be in a position to make an informed forecast of the incidence and nature of the risk to be guarded against and of the probable effectiveness of the preventive measures you will require to adopt in order to discharge your statutory duty’, Lord Cameron , Gillies v Glynwed Foundries Ltd, 1977 SLT 97 – It was held that ‘accidents at work’, even in a case like this based upon the Factories Act 1961, are largely based around statute – making cases and defences from their provisions – with the main defence open to the defenders being that they could not have practicably done any more than they already did, ‘In my opinion the true situation is this: unless a defender makes specific use of the statutory escape clause in his defence by averring and offering to prove that it was not reasonably practicable to keep the floor free, and the pursuer proves obstruction and injury resulting therefrom, the breach and consequent liability are established, but when the defender, in addition to any other defence open to him, pleads the specific defence which the statute allows him, then a breach of statute cannot be affirmed until the whole evidence relevant to the averments and pleas of both parties have been considered and the facts ascertained’, Lord Cameron at 104
Warning: This is not professional legal advice. This is not professional legal education advice. Please obtain professional guidance before embarking on any legal course of action. This is just an interpretation of a Judgment by persons of legal insight & varying levels of legal specialism, experience & expertise. Please read the Judgment yourself and form your own interpretation of it with professional assistance.