Law for Managers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2500 words - 1

Law for Managers - Essay Example The concept of â€Å"foreseenability† in many cases is correlated with the issue of a reasonable practicability. Anyway, the employer should provide employees with a certain degree of safety, but risk assessment is placed totally on employees only. It is relevant to consider any type of possible risks. Every employer can make a decision and he can also ignore safety issues. In any case, every employer should be assured that he provided his employees with an efficient level of safety and guaranteed their risks avoidance. On the example of the available cases, the implications of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 are considered further on. Moreover, current literature sources are provided for further considerations about flexibility and challenge of the Act. Legal Authorities (Cases) Thus, for example, when a child was injured and took a used hypodermic syringe, the doctor was accused of failing to ensure health and safety issues of the person. A child took a syringe from a shelf, which was further replaced by another higher shelf. In the result of this accident: â€Å"The doctor was fined ?5,000 under Section 3(2) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 for failing to ensure the health and safety of a person not in her employment and was also ordered to pay the full prosecution costs of ?981.68† (Everley,1999). ... An employee could not transport 935 kilograms of LPG and it was very soon ignited by a nearby gas leakage. Consequently, the Managing Director of the company did not follow HSE guidance and failed to follow the minimum distance to be maintained between vehicles and fuel tanks containing LPG (HSE, 2010). This is a resonance case and in many similar cases the responsibility is applied for the employers. Very often a personal responsibility of employees is omitted. Another case, when the Managing Director and managers of the company were prosecuted for offences, which related to an outbreak of Legionnaire’s disease. This bacterium was transferred from one employee to another and it was very difficult for the managers of the company to stop the expansion of this disease. The towers were not properly cleaned and in the result of this neglectful attitude the expansion of the disease were motivated. This case illustrated that: â€Å"the HSE will not only prosecute companies but also Managing Directors if they are found to be negligent† (HSE, 2010). Moreover, it is appropriate to appeal for the personal liability issues in terms of this Act. Thus, personal liability for offences under s 37(1) of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974 was issued at almost the same date of the corporate manslaughter Bill received the Royal Assent. It is possible to correlate these two legal regulation Acts. Moreover, a special attention should be paid to ss 7 and 36 of the HSWA 1974. Section 7 is focused on the employees’ responsibility of their safety. In other words, every employee should be responsible for his own actions at work, because the HSWA 1974 is known as â€Å"the primary focus for all health and safety legislation in the UK† (Barnard 1998, p. 1).