Description
Employee attacked in course of employment - duty of care - safe working system?:-On 23 June 2003 the pursuer's allocated jobs included the repair of a television in a private house at 36 Lochend Street, Easterhouse, Glasgow. Easterhouse was an area with which the pursuer was very familiar, and in which he had carried out many such jobs in the past. After attending at around 10am, he completed the job and emerged from the close to where his van was parked outside. He placed his toolbox on the pavement preparatory to opening the van doors, and at that point he was suddenly and without warning attacked by two men armed with knives. The pursuer sought damages from the defenders in respect of the attack, alleging that the defenders were in breach of their common law duty of care to provide the pursuer with a safe system of work. In particular, he contended that in a known dangerous area such as Lochend Road, Easterhouse, the allocated repair should have been designated as a 2-man job, or at least that a system should have been in place whereby the assistance of a second man would have been available to him on request. In denying negligence, the defenders maintained that they were under no duty to arrange double-manning for jobs at the locus and that they did have a system in place whereby engineers could request any necessary assistance and in any event that the presence of a second man on this occasion would not have prevented the street assault which occurred. The court here looked at whether the pursuer had discharged the onus of proof on him that but for the defenders' alleged breach of duty, the street assault on that date would probably have been avoided and whether what the defenders actually did or failed to do at the relevant time amounted to a breach of their common law duty of care. The court also looked at (i) the degree of foreseeability of the harm complained of (ii) the relative ease or difficulty of taking effective precautionary measures and (iii) where the failure alleged against the defenders is one of omission, the existence of any relevant practice adopted by other employers in like circumstances.
