Koonjul v Thameslink Healthcare Services

The duties under regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 arise where a manual handling operation presents a real risk of injury. A foreseeable possibility is sufficient; probability is unnecessary.

The assessment must be realistic and context-specific. An employer cannot assume that employees will always take full care for their safety, but may consider the nature of the workplace and an employee’s age, experience and training. Reasonable practicability does not require a precise assessment and warning for every everyday task presenting only a very low risk.

An experienced care assistant injured her back while pulling a low bed away from a wall at a residential home for children. The county court entered judgment for her employer. It found no common law negligence and held that regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 did not arise because the task presented no significant risk of injury.

The claimant appealed only under the Regulations. The issues were whether the operation presented the requisite risk and whether the employer had failed to avoid or reduce that risk so far as reasonably practicable.

1. Appeal dismissed. Lady Justice Hale held that regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 requires a real risk of injury, amounting to a foreseeable possibility. The risk need not approach probability. An employer assessing that risk cannot assume that employees will invariably act with full concern for their own safety.

2. The assessment must nevertheless contain an element of realism and must be context-based. The relevant circumstances include the particular operation, workplace and employees. The employer could therefore consider that the work involved ordinary domestic tasks and that the claimant was experienced and had received training in safe manual handling.

3. Lady Justice Hale was prepared to assume that pulling the bed involved some risk of back injury. There was nevertheless no breach of regulation 4. Keeping the bed against the wall protected children who might otherwise fall from it, so the employer was not required under regulation 4(1)(a) to position every such bed away from the wall.

4. The employer had also complied with its duty under regulation 4(1)(b) to reduce the risk to the lowest level reasonably practicable. The work involved numerous everyday manual handling operations, and the risk attached to this task was very low. Reasonable practicability did not require a separate, precise assessment of every such task or a specific warning about how each task should be performed, particularly where the employee already knew the relevant safe techniques.

5. Sir Christopher Staughton agreed that the employer had done everything required by regulations 4(1)(a) and 4(1)(b), having regard to the claimant’s age, experience and training. He was inclined to find that no relevant risk existed because no sensible person would have performed the task as she did, but decided the appeal on the alternative ground adopted by Lady Justice Hale.

6. The court did not determine whether the claimant was contributorily negligent. Sir Christopher Staughton also left open whether regulation 4(1)(b) places the legal burden of proof on the employer, as distinct from imposing the substantive duty to take the required steps.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): The claimant’s appeal was dismissed with costs. The court held that the employer had complied with regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
2. Mayor’s and City of London County Court: District Judge Lipton, sitting as a deputy county court judge, gave judgment for the defendant on 12 October 1999. He found no common law negligence and held that the Regulations did not apply because there was no significant risk of injury.