Health and Safety

In a claim for breach of statutory duty relating to manual handling operations, it is not enough for the claimant to show a breach of the requirement to carry out a proper risk assessment if there is evidence that the defendant had in fact taken appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to the lowest level reasonably practicable. If the defendant has done so without a proper risk assessment, the lack of an assessment would not have caused the claimant’s injury. This ruling is of general application— and so not confined to claims under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/2793).