Statutory duty to employee is higher than at common law

Allison v London Underground Ltd CA TLR 29 February

The statutory requirement for an employer to provide adequate training for its employees imposes a test of what training was needed, in the light of what the employer ought to have known about the risks from the activities of its business. It is a higher duty than the common law duty, which incorporates reasonable foreseeability. The common law duty deals only with the risk, which the employer knows about, but the statutory duty imposes on the employer a duty to investigate the risks inherent in his operations, taking professional advice where necessary. The employer was required to carry out a suitable and sufficient risk assessment in order to identify the measures it needed to take to comply with the requirements and prohibitions imposed upon it by or under the relevant statutory provisions, in the present case reg 3 of the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. The claimant developed tenosynovitis while driving an underground train on the Jubilee line. If the claimant had been trained not to rest her thumb on the chamfered end of the ‘dead man’s’ handle, she would not have suffered injury.