The Plaintiff had suffered spinal injury when he fell from a ladder in the course of his employment. The court held his employer liable for breach of the Construction (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1996 and the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 and for negligence at common law for failure to provide a safe system of work. They stated that the ladder was too short to provide safe access for the operation for which it was needed, that the ladder was work equipment and that it was reasonably foreseeable that its shortcomings would affect the safety of any person using it to carry out the work in question. However, the injury had occurred in a room in a building owned by someone else. The room had been unlocked on the Plaintiff's arrival by one of the defendant's employees, and the Plaintiff had noticed the ladder leaning against a wall in the room and had used it without asking permission. While the employer had been aware that a ladder would be required, he had not provided one. The owner of the room had been aware of the ladder's presence in the room and could have removed it at any time. The employer applied under Pt 20 for a contribution from the room owner in respect of his liability to the Plaintiff. The court held that the owner was bound to make a contribution of 25 per cent on the grounds that the owner would have been liable to the Plaintiff, as non-employers who controlled work equipment were liable under the 1998 Regulations for its foreseeable non-suitability under reg.4(1) and reg.4(4) just as much as employers were.
The room owner appealed. He submitted that even if he did have some control over the ladder, this was limited and did not extend to controlling its use once the Plaintiff had entered the room. His appeal was allowed. Although he did have some control placed some kind of notice on it, but that was the limit of its control. Also he did not own he ladder. It could have belonged to other users of the building or have been left by an unknown workman, and in the absence of such a finding it was difficult to say what the purpose of his control was beyond that of ensuring that the ladder did not get in anyone's way.
The result of this ruling is that in deciding whether or not a non-employer has ‘control’ of equipment under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998, it is necessary to ascertain whether there was a purpose for which he had such control as he had. It is authority for the fact that a person who just happened to be on the premises when an accident occurred should be held responsible for the maintenance or suitability of a piece of equipment on those premises.