Reynolds v Strutt & Parker LLP

An employer may owe a common-law duty of care when organising recreational activities for employees, even where the employees are not acting in the course of their employment for health and safety legislation. The duty requires reasonable care in organising and managing the activity, including a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. Where unfamiliar organisers arrange a potentially dangerous activity, reasonable care may require advice from the facility operator or other competent persons. A failure to assess risk is causative where a proper assessment would probably have led to a precaution which would probably have avoided the injury. Contributory negligence is assessed by reference to both blameworthiness and causative potency.

The claimant suffered a severe head injury during a bicycle race organised as part of a staff event arranged by partners of the defendant, a property consultancy. He alleged negligence and breaches of health and safety regulations, particularly in failing to assess the risks of bicycle racing and to require or properly communicate the use of cycle helmets.

The defendant argued that the event was social and outside the course of employment, so that the regulations did not apply. The central issues were whether the claimant was at work, what common-law duty was owed, whether the defendant breached that duty, causation, and contributory negligence.

1. Liability. Judgment was entered for the claimant on liability, subject to a finding of two-thirds contributory negligence.
2. The claimant was not in the course of his employment while attending and participating in the employer’s recreational event. The statutory health and safety regulations therefore did not apply. The competitive cycling activity would, in any event, have fallen outside the exception for competitive sports in regulation 3(2)(e) of the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992, which was directed to employed professional sportspeople. That conclusion was obiter because the regulations were inapplicable.
3. The absence of a statutory duty did not remove the common-law duty. The relationship of employer and employee remained relevant, and the defendant was also the organiser of the event. It owed a duty to take reasonable care to ensure that employees were reasonably safe in the activities arranged and in the making and management of the arrangements.
4. That duty included a suitable and sufficient risk assessment. The organisers lacked the necessary skill and knowledge, failed to identify the obvious risk of collision in amateur bicycle racing, and failed to obtain relevant advice from the facility operator. They also failed properly to assess or communicate the need for cycle helmets.
5. The failure was causative. Had the facility’s policy been obtained, the organisers would have required helmets, and the claimant would have complied. Expert evidence established that a helmet would probably have prevented the serious brain injury. The claimant was nevertheless contributorily negligent because he deliberately or recklessly moved to prevent another rider passing and failed to wear an available helmet.
6. Apportionment required consideration of both relative blameworthiness and causative potency. The claimant bore two-thirds responsibility, leaving him entitled to recover one-third of his damages.

Not stated in the judgment.