News

Injured on the job

AN EMPLOYEE WHO is injured on the job can sue the employer to recover damages for negligence if the employer does not put certain measures in place to make the workplace reasonably safe.

A man whose legs were crushed by the wheels of the truck from which he had fallen had to prove to the court that he was within the scope of his employment when the accident occurred.

Metropolitan Parks and Markets (MPM) to which 52-year-old Eric Sway was employed on June 9, 2000 when tragedy struck, had denied responsibility for the injuries he suffered.

Swaby whose legs were amputated above the knee sued MPM seeking damages for negligence. He said he was employed to MPM for 20 years at the time of the accident. He recounted that after they had finished working, they were travelling on Spanish Town Road, Kingston on their way home, when the truck went over a bump in the road and he fell from the back of the truck.

Frolicking

MPM claimed that Swaby was on a frolic of his own when he was injured and the court should accept the medical evidence that Swaby was intoxicated on the day of the accident and that caused him to fall from the truck.

MPM claimed that Swaby, who was intoxicated, was moving around in the back of the truck and that was the reason he fell. In an effort to prove its case MPM brought witnesses to prove that Swaby and other men who were working on the truck had gone to a bar on Water Lane, downtown Kingston where they had alcholic beverages, picked up women and children and were taking them home. In so doing, they had departed from their scope of employment, attorney-at-law Garth McBean argued on behalf of MPM.

Swaby said in his evidence that when they stopped at the bar they all drank campari and white rum from the same bottle. He said it was the practice for the men who worked on the truck to be taken to the depot or given a ride near to their homes when they had finished working.

Behaviour condoned

Attorneys-at-law Manley Nicholson and Karene Vaz-Griffiths, who represented Swaby, argued at the hearing in the Supreme Court last month that MPM was precluded from relying on the fact that the men went to a bar and consumed alcohol because such behaviour was condoned by the supervisor. Swaby's lawyers argued that Swaby was within the scope of his employment at the time of the accident. They asked the judge to find that MPM did not provide the men with safe and proper seating or standing support on the truck and should be held liable for Swaby's injuries.

Mrs. Justice Almarie Haynes agreed with the arguments put forward by Swaby's lawyers and held that the MPM was negligent in not providing a safe seating system in place at the back of the truck for the workers. The judge found that the men's work ended when they returned to the depot or when they were left near their homes. The judge awarded Swaby $7.9 million in damages against MPM but reduced the award by 30 per cent because of Swaby's intoxication at the time of the accident.