PRP Architects v Reid

An employer’s strict duty to maintain work equipment may extend to a lift in the common parts of the building containing its workplace, even though the employer neither owns nor directly controls it. An employee leaving work through such a lift may be using it “at work” for the purposes of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998.

The statutory expression must be applied incrementally and by reference to all the circumstances. Relevant considerations may include the lift’s proximity to the workplace, its function as a natural means of access and egress, the employee’s work-related use, and the employer’s contractual rights concerning it. The decision does not establish that strict liability follows whenever an employee uses third-party equipment in the course of employment.

The respondent, a receptionist employed in second-floor offices, was injured when the doors of a defective lift closed on her hand as she left work. The lift was in the common parts of the building. The appellants had a right to use it under their lease and paid service charges towards its maintenance, but the landlord bore responsibility for repair.

The Central London County Court held the appellants liable for breach of Regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. The safety devices were concededly defective. The appeal concerned whether the lift was work equipment “provided for use or used by an employee … at work” within Regulation 3(2), particularly when the employee was leaving at the end of the working day.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. Pill LJ held that the respondent was using the lift “at work” within Regulation 3(2) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 when leaving the building at the end of her working day. The statutory line was not to be drawn when she left the employer’s office, entered the lift or descended from the second floor. The admitted defect therefore placed the appellants in breach of Regulation 5(1).

2. The lift had to be treated as work equipment because that issue had not properly been raised below. In any event, “work equipment” called for a broad construction and an installed lift was capable of falling within it. A distinction nevertheless remained between work equipment and the structure or condition of premises.

3. Acting in the course of employment was an important consideration when deciding whether equipment was used “at work”, but it did not supply a complete test for the strict duties imposed by the Regulations. The definition in section 52(1)(b) of the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974 could not simply be transposed. Depending on the circumstances, the statutory expression might also import geographical limits and permit consideration of the employer’s degree of control.

4. The result was confined to the close connection between this lift and the employer’s workplace. Questions concerning equipment in remote buildings, public transport or employees without a regular workplace were left open. The Directive established minimum requirements and did not prevent domestic regulations from imposing more stringent duties.

5. Neuberger LJ, agreeing with Pill LJ, emphasised that the statutory language should be applied incrementally rather than replaced by a judicial reformulation. The relevant circumstances included the lift’s location, its obvious function as a means of access and egress, the respondent’s work-related use, the leasehold right to use it, the landlord’s enforceable maintenance obligation and the circumstances of the accident. No single factor was vital or determinative.

6. On the alternative grounds, Pill LJ considered that a contractual right to require repair did not give the appellants control of the lift under Regulation 4 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992. The respondent could not invoke section 1(1) of the Employers’ Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969 because the pleaded common-law negligence claim had not been pursued.

1. Court of Appeal (Civil Division): In [2006] EWCA Civ 1119, the court unanimously dismissed the employers’ appeal.
2. Central London County Court: Her Honour Judge Faber held the employers liable in damages for breach of Regulation 5 of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. The trial concerned liability only.