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10 July 2009 / Brent Mcdonald
Issue: 7377 / Categories: Features , Health & safety , Personal injury , Employment
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Making a connection

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Smith has forced the courts to re-evaluate the concept of control,says Brent McDonald

In Smith v Northamptonshire County Council [2009] UKHL 27, ALL ER [2009] All ER (D) 170 (May) Mrs Smith was a carer and driver working for the defendant. On the day of her accident, as she had done for eight years previously, she attended at a private house to convey the occupant, who was a wheelchair user, into the minibus. To do so she had to wheel the claimant down a wooden ramp which had been installed at the client’s home by the NHS.

Although the council had carried out an inspection of the ramp (which, it was agreed, would not have revealed a defect) and asked Mrs Smith to visually inspect the ramp before using it, they had no right to call for its removal, to repair it or otherwise exercise control over it.

Due to rotting which could not be seen, the edge of the ramp gave way as the claimant crossed it, causing the claimant to

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