“every employer shall ensure that any personal protective equipment provided to his employees is maintained (including replaced or cleaned as appropriate) in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair.”
“Is such a finding determinative of Mr Fytche’s claim as contended on his behalf? It is submitted on behalf of the claimant that the findings of fact that I have made together with the absolute duty imposed by Regulation 7 are sufficient on their own to establish liability. I have held that the boots the claimant was wearing were personal protective clothing within the Regulations. I have done so because the boots had steel toecaps which were designed to protect the claimant in the course of his employment from injury to his toes. On examination the right boot had a tiny hole which I have previously described. This allowed the ingress of water which lead to the claimant’s injury. The boots themselves remained entirely suitable as protective boots; the little hole in no way impaired the protection that the steel toecaps provided. It did not in any way undermine the protection that the boots were designed to give. This is an entirely different situation to that in the case of Stark where the equipment provided was plainly not in efficient working order at the material time. In my judgment, on 19 December, 1999, the claimant’s boots were in efficient working order and in good repair. In my opinion it would be an abuse of language to hold that these boots were not in efficient working order or not in good repair because there was a tiny hole in them which was hardly visible, of which the claimant, who was fanatical about the upkeep of his boots was unaware. The hole did not in any way affect the efficiency of the boots in the context in which they were provided. Were it necessary for me to consider the foreseeability of injury by reason of the hole in the right boot, I would hold there was none.”
“…..Once the question of whether the statute is ever actionable in private law has been determined, there are four further issues, that must be considered: (1) The claimant must show that the damage he suffered falls within the ambit of the statute, namely that it was of the type that the legislation was intended to prevent and that the claimant belonged to the category of persons that the statute was intended to protect. It is not sufficient simply that the loss would not have occurred if the defendant had complied with terms of the statute. This rule performs a function similar to that of remoteness of damage…..”
“`Injury not contemplated by the statute Non-compliance with a statutory duty cannot be actionable unless the injury was of the type which the statute was passed to prevent. If a statute requires something to be done with a view to avoiding one particular type of damage……….”