Mum Sues Building Firm When Her 10 Yr Old Son Enters A Site And Gets Killed

[francypants]

On 05/12/2023 at 10:04, Chekhov said:

I am saying exactly that.

 

Question : Did that child know they should not be playing on that building site, yes or no ?

 

If the answer is yes, the child did know they should not have been playing on there surely the child should accept some responsibility for that. If your point would then be that some 10 year old kids cannot do that then the obvious next point is they should not be out on their own.

 

If the answer is no, the child did not know they should not be playing in there (which I do not believe for a second but let's go with it), then that is the responsibility of the parents for either not bringing them up with a sense of responsibility and/or for letting them go out playing when they have no sense of responsibility.

No matter how carefully and responsibly you have brought up your child,  young children often make wrong decisions.  Most of the time these wrong decisions don't matter too much and the child learns from it but sometimes a wrong decision can have catastrophic consequences.  

No matter how many times you may have warned a young child of dangers,  when there are a few children together often fooling around etc  that child may do something silly or dangerous which he/she would never do whilst alone.  Anything can happen  .......  and it does.

[ECCOnoob]

5 hours ago, Chekhov said:

Would you care to answer my question :

 

Question : Did that child know they should not be playing on that building site, yes or no ?

 

If the answer is yes, the child did know they should not have been playing on there surely the child should accept some responsibility for that. If your point would then be that some 10 year old kids cannot do that then the obvious next point is they should not be out on their own.

 

If the answer is no, the child did not know they should not be playing in there (which I do not believe for a second but let's go with it), then that is the responsibility of the parents for either not bringing them up with a sense of responsibility and/or for letting them go out playing when they have no sense of responsibility.

How the hell would I know the thoughts of a now dead 10 year old child.  

 

It's totally irrelevant anyway as the burden is on the contracting company to comply with the set rules, regulations and laws to make their site safe, even more so when said site is in close proximity to a playground. 

 

How about Corporate Responsibility??

 

Compliance of which was all negligently breached by the contracting company resulting in their prosecution and significant fine. 

 

If the kid had knowingly planned, gone tooled up, with intent, broken in through secured gates, destroyed the warning signs and recklessly dived into a hole you may have argument on contributory negligence.  But given this is a young pre-teen child at play, presented with a tempting invitation by a gaping hole in a fence next to a playground and a nicely conveniently placed ladder it's a different planet. 

 

Sec 3.1 of the HSWA.... It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety....

 

It was reasonably practical for the site to conduct sufficient risk assessment, including the obvious element of potential enticing of children.

 

It was reasonably practical for the site to maintain sufficient records.  

 

It was reasonably practical for the site to ensure sufficient maintenance of their fencing. 

 

It was reasonably practical for the site to comply with their duties of inspection and spot a great hole in their fence.

 

It was reasonably practical for the site to have sufficient patrol and securing.  

 

It couldn't be more clear where the blame lies in this one.  

 

Heres a bit of free advice, I hope your shop premises are keeping on top of the statutory obligations of health and safety - because if a HSE prosecution is found, it can be business wrecking level of fines. 

Edited December 6, 2023 by ECCOnoob

[Chekhov]

21 hours ago, Bargepole23 said:

As for temporary traffic lights, a legally parked car is not the same as a worker on the edge of an open excavation. Motorists will try to squeeze through spaces, without regard for putting other peoples lives in danger, cos thats what motorists do.

Cobblers.

The sites have fences round them.

But even if they did not striving for 100% safety is a zero sum game that is way past any sense of proportionality now.

 

20 hours ago, francypants said:

No matter how carefully and responsibly you have brought up your child,  young children often make wrong decisions.  Most of the time these wrong decisions don't matter too much and the child learns from it but sometimes a wrong decision can have catastrophic consequences.  

No matter how many times you may have warned a young child of dangers,  when there are a few children together often fooling around etc  that child may do something silly or dangerous which he/she would never do whilst alone.  Anything can happen  .......  and it does.

It does.

But how far are you wanting to take this ?

Should all walls have child proof fences round them ?

What about all roads ?

Basically I am sick of this expectation we should all be 100% safe regardless of any cost, and if we aren't its someone else's fault.

Even worse people are totally inconsistent, they're quite happy to drive on the roads, and in fact many of these same people, moaning on about wanting to be "safe", actually speed.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Chekhov

[Bargepole23]

4 minutes ago, Chekhov said:

Cobblers.

The sites have fences round them.

But even if they did not striving for 100% safety is a zero sum game that is way past any sense of proportionality now.

Sites? Are we talking about construction sites or temporary traffic lights now?

[Chekhov]

17 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

How the hell would I know the thoughts of a now dead 10 year old child.  

It's totally irrelevant anyway as the burden is on the contracting company to comply with the set rules, regulations and laws to make their site safe, even more so when said site is in close proximity to a playground. 

How about Corporate Responsibility??

Compliance of which was all negligently breached by the contracting company resulting in their prosecution and significant fine. 

If the kid had knowingly planned, gone tooled up, with intent, broken in through secured gates, destroyed the warning signs and recklessly dived into a hole you may have argument on contributory negligence.  But given this is a young pre-teen child at play, presented with a tempting invitation by a gaping hole in a fence next to a playground and a nicely conveniently placed ladder it's a different planet. 

Sec 3.1 of the HSWA.... It shall be the duty of every employer to conduct his undertaking in such a way to ensure, so far as is reasonably practical, that persons not in his employment who may be affected thereby are not thereby exposed to risks to their health or safety....

It was reasonably practical for the site to conduct sufficient risk assessment, including the obvious element of potential enticing of children.

It was reasonably practical for the site to maintain sufficient records.  

It was reasonably practical for the site to ensure sufficient maintenance of their fencing. 

It was reasonably practical for the site to comply with their duties of inspection and spot a great hole in their fence.

It was reasonably practical for the site to have sufficient patrol and securing.  

It couldn't be more clear where the blame lies in this one.  

Heres a bit of free advice, I hope your shop premises are keeping on top of the statutory obligations of health and safety - because if a HSE prosecution is found, it can be business wrecking level of fines. 

I note you avoid answering the question, or in fact anything that might be difficult

 

They should scrap all of that "duty of care" cobblers, and return to the concept of "reasonable care" .

But they won't.

Instead we'll just get more and more restrictions and regulation and bans till everything is banned unless it's specifically allowed.

In fact, as you know that has already happening ( here ).

You tried to argue with me on that one too, but I was able to prove what you said was rubbish, esp you telling me I knew less about swimming than a swimming teacher ! 

You should have checked your facts first shouldn't you ! !

Priceless.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Chekhov

[Chekhov]

15 minutes ago, Bargepole23 said:

>>Chekhov said: Cobblers.

The sites have fences round them.

But even if they did not striving for 100% safety is a zero sum game that is way past any sense of proportionality now.<<

 

Sites? Are we talking about construction sites or temporary traffic lights now?

Temporary traffic lights at sites that take up no more room than a parked car.

[Thorpist]

Whilst visiting a friend in the USA he was told by a parent who had brought a child along to the kids party if an accident happens he would be sued by the parents. The upshot being no more kids parties.

Certainly health and safety protection was very poor years ago  and regulation  has saved many lives and prevented serious injuries to many people . However the whole human resources area has become a self perpetuating edifice where  things get stalled and work grinds to a halt for the most minor reasons . Common sense and personal responsibility seem to be legislated out of everyday life .

 I see lots of riders on bicycles not wearing clothing which can be seen and without lights and when an accident occurs the car driver generally takes the blame. Speaking as a cyclist I try to make sure that I am visible and well lit

Edited December 7, 2023 by Thorpist
spelling

[ECCOnoob]

1 hour ago, Chekhov said:

I note you avoid answering the question, or in fact anything that might be difficult

 

I have told you the reason why I can't answer the question.  You are asking me to determine what a dead child did or didn't know. How exactly can I answer that?

 

As for your rant about duty of care vs. reasonable care -   If you read my response properly you will see I was talking about what is a reasonable action for the contractor to have done. They failed and as a result of that failure a child died. That is why they got prosecuted and that is why they suffered a massive fine.  

 

Even the law itself has very clear words.  Look at the extract again. "....As far as reasonably practical....".  There are defences about maintaining a balance between operational reality and maintaining safety. They are parts of say, the manual handling regulations that say such risks should be avoided as far as possible. That's not to say it can't ever be done, just should be reduced to the bare minimum.    So you can quit with this seemingly self created myth that all and everything's got to be 100% fail safe and the bogeymen authorities won't stop till they're done. 

 

Just what exactly on my list was deemed 'unreasonable' for a business to undertake. Putting up a secure fence?  Regular checks to make sure there were no gaping holes in it?

 

As for the rest of your post, Im not going to indulge you in your flashbacks to totally unrelated threads nor let you regurgitate your whines about not being able to freely engage in filming of children swimming and 1001 other overreactions to aspects of modern life - which somehow the rest of us happily get on with without drama.

Edited December 7, 2023 by ECCOnoob

[Chekhov]

9 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

As for the rest of your post, Im not going to indulge you in your flashbacks to totally unrelated threads nor let you regurgitate your whines about not being able to freely engage in filming of children swimming and 1001 other overreactions to aspects of modern life - which somehow the rest of us happily get on with without drama.

You are showing your selfishness right there.

You don't care if parents are banned from videoing their kids competing because you do not have a child who competes.

Exactly like like the selfish gits who told me (during Covid) that not being able to swim for 8 months "was something and nothing", because they don't swim (and certainly not as seriously as me).

 

>>I'm not going to indulge you in your flashbacks to totally unrelated threads<<

 

Of course you aren't because your argument was made to look silly.

And they were totally related, if you think they weren't it's because you have not been reading this thread.

 

I'll make it easy, you don't even have to click on a link :

 

You were arguing I am not qualified to teach my lad to swim :

 

>>and frankly [the swimming teachers are] far more qualified [than you to teach swimming]<<

 

Really ?

I have been swimming 30 years, and competed for about 5. My lad would not take swimming lessons and wanted me to teach him. Which I did and he swam 25m a week before his 3rd birthday, and he was small for his age, he was about the size of the average 2 year old.....

At the age of 5 he was probably the best swimmer (for his age) in Sheff (at freestyle), he then lost a lot of interest for about 3 years so he is no longer the best. But he's still one of the best, particularly bearing in mind he is still small for his age.

Edited December 7, 2023 by Chekhov

[ECCOnoob]

4 hours ago, Chekhov said:

You are showing your selfishness right there.

You don't care if parents are banned from videoing their kids competing because you do not have a child who competes.

Exactly like like the selfish gits who told me (during Covid) that not being able to swim for 8 months "was something and nothing", because they don't swim (and certainly not as seriously as me).

 

>>I'm not going to indulge you in your flashbacks to totally unrelated threads<<

 

Of course you aren't because your argument was made to look silly.

And they were totally related, if you think they weren't it's because you have not been reading this thread.

 

I'll make it easy, you don't even have to click on a link :

 

You were arguing I am not qualified to teach my lad to swim :

 

>>and frankly [the swimming teachers are] far more qualified [than you to teach swimming]<<

 

Really ?

I have been swimming 30 years, and competed for about 5. My lad would not take swimming lessons and wanted me to teach him. Which I did and he swam 25m a week before his 3rd birthday, and he was small for his age, he was about the size of the average 2 year old.....

At the age of 5 he was probably the best swimmer (for his age) in Sheff (at freestyle), but he then lost a lot of interest for about 3 years so he is no longer the best. But he's still one of the best, particularly bearing in mind he is still small for his age.

What has any of that crap got to do with a child dying on a negligently run building site.

 

You are obsessed man and quite frankly no I don't care.  I don't care that you get soooo wound up and overreact soooo extremely about rules brought in by people who know better and have the brain power to think about the wider picture.