Dispute
The case of the dispute revolves around a store which primarily sells pieces of machinery like chainsaws, axes, drill machines and other construction tools and equipment. My father owned this store and I had worked in it for a couple of years as a backend staff.
The premise is divided into two sections. The first section is for the customers who will be needing assistance in the selection of the particular equipment that they need. These are primarily the households who have little idea about the particulars of the equipment they require. The second section, on the other hand, deals with the customers who have the knowledge and the idea of what exactly they need. The second section has very less staff in comparison to the first. This is because the experienced and the highly skilled team are allocated to the second section to provide the much-needed recommendations to these kinds of customers.
A young man who had been a factory worker for over fifteen years walked into the store looking for a chainsaw. The man knew the particulars of the equipment along with the sizes and the specifications that he wanted in the machine. Therefore, he was guided to the second section where he was presented with a range of chainsaws along with the facility to test them over a variety of materials. The particular staff appointed for the second section had been busy with another customer and would be attending him in a minute. Meanwhile, this specific factory worker had started testing each of the chainsaws without knowing the fact that one of the chainsaws was not ready for use. When he reached this particular chainsaw that was still not ready for use he missed the fact that the machine had been marked with a yellow sticker and a potential warning sign. The storekeeper who was busy with the other customer had finished dealing with him and could see from a distance, the potential accident that was going to take place. He had tried his best to shout and warn this young man in regards to not use the machine, but the noise in the store topped his voice. The man switched on the chainsaw which was still not ready for use which resulted in the blade dropping from the equipment and cutting off a part of his right foot.
The man had filed a suit in the court asking for compensation for his loss from the management of the store. To decide whether the man should receive compensation or not, it should be determined whether the case successfully falls under the tort of negligence.
The Tort of Negligence and its principles
The tort of negligence refers to a particular situation which results in an injury that is not intentional or deliberate but could be avoided with the recent amenities of complex technology. However, a particular fact that must be noted here is that these kinds of injuries may be unintended but have been caused via a standard of conduct that is not up to the mark. This means that the particular standard of conduct has been of lower degree in regards to the quality of protection that it intends to provide against unexpected risks or harm. In general, three elements must be proved for a plaintiff to file a negligence suit successfully. These are as follows:
1. Duty of Care
A duty of care refers to the particular way in which an individual should act so that his actions do not harm or inflict unintended injury upon others. This particular standard is both flexible and objective in nature and varies from one specific event of unintended injury to another. To establish duty of care, we need to establish three things-
a) Relationship between person with duty of care and the injured party
The Neighbour Test determines this. It tends to check that the plaintiff was closely related and affected by the actions of the defendant. The individual entered the store legally hence establishing a relationship between him and the shop.
b) Consideration of Risk of injury
The plaintiff must be able to prove that the defendant should be able to foresee the risk by not performing the duty The store deals with equipment which can be rated as both dangerous and potentially fatal. Therefore, any lapse of responsibility could cause harm to potential customers that get a touch and feel of this equipment. This is opposite to the case of Hay and Young case where establishing the consideration of Risk was difficult and wasn’t foreseeable. If the store knew the product had issues (as it had a warning sticker), then it’s their lack of duty towards their customer that caused the product to still be out in display for a customer to use.
c) Vulnerability of the Plaintiff
This is based on Reasonable Reliance, that is, the injured party was reliant upon the actions of the wrongdoer (Reynolds and Katoomba). The individual had experience of using the chainsaw before but he was dependent on the store not stocking faulty products, especially as they are hazardous to the user who could be caught unaware. The customer went to the store and tried equipment under the impression that the store would ensure no products are faulty and create a safe environment.
All three aspects considered, it can be established that the store had a Duty of Care towards this particular customer. Now, the next step to be considered is-
2. Duty of Care Breached
The duty of care is breached when a single person exposes another person in regards to the risk of harm that is unreasonable or cannot be estimated beforehand. In case of a particular situation in which an individual does what a person with a rational mind would do against the risk of injury for cautioning or protecting the affected party then such an act would not result in liability. Therefore, the breach of the duty of care depends on the degree of the reasonableness of the risk.
Therefore, to look to whether this has been breached, we look at the standard/level of care required in this situation.
a) Seriousness of the harm/injury
The rule is, more serious the harm then higher the standard of care. The individual in this situation lost his right foot due to this incident. As he is a factory worker, this would also potentially end his career and livelihood. Through Paris and Stepney case and Bolton and Stone case, we can determine till what extent the injury can be classified as serious. In this case, the seriousness was high therefore the standard of care was high as well.
HIGH Seriousness – HIGH Standard of Care
b) Probability of Risk of Injury
The whole case revolves around the fact that the device was known to be defective and was marked for warning. Despite this, the store still put it up in the display section. The probability of risk would have been low if this product was not known to be faulty, but in this case, the probability of risk was high (due to the nature of the product). Therefore, the standard of care should have been much higher than what was displayed by the store.
HIGH Probability of Risk of Injury – HIGH Standard of Care
c) Practicality of taking precaution
If they wanted to show this product (knowing it was faulty), they could ensure that it would either not get switched on by any chance or kept arm’s length away so that no would be able to touch it. It was fairly straight-forward to take precaution in this case, and yet the store didn’t (Paris and Stepney). Therefore, the standard of care remains high.
HIGH Practicality of taking precaution – HIGH Standard of Care
3. Damage / Causation –
The last condition that needs to be satisfied to file a successful suit by the plaintiff is that the particular act that has been regarded as a breach of duty must be the actual reason for the injuries of the plaintiff. Here it must be noted that the breach of duty must not be the only cause for the injuries of the affected entity but also a substantial factor for the same (Waverley Council and Ferreira). To prove that causal link, the courts use ‘But For’ test (Because of their action). The plaintiff here would not have cut off his feet and suffered harm ‘but for’ the defendant’s breach.
Analysis of the Dispute
The case apparently falls under the tort of negligence. This is because the machine had been marked with a potential warning and “do not use†tag. Moreover, the worker or the storekeeper allocated to the second section had tried his best to warn the customer by shouting. Similar action is expected from a reasonable man. However, the particular question that arises here is that why should a machine that is not proper for use be displayed to a customer. The machine should not have been in the display section. The particular fact that the damaged chainsaw had been kept in the range of access of the customer makes the case fall under the tort of negligence (Goudkamp and Ihuoma 2016).
The duty of care had also been breached in the case of the dispute as the storekeeper assigned with the job of attending the customer had not attended to him in spite of observing the fact that he was interested in buying chainsaws. This particular act of negligence by the management of the store had also caused and contributed to the injury that had been caused to the factory worker, ruining his career as a part of his foot had to be removed. Therefore, all the three elements are present in the case. The duty of caring had been breached by keeping the malfunctioning chain saw with the other chainsaws and not attending the customer in spite of observing the fact that he is interested in buying chainsaws (Martin 2016). Therefore, it can be concluded that the store is liable for the event of injury and should compensate the customer for his loss.
However, it must be noted here that the cases like the Reynolds v Katoomba RSC All Services Club (2004) in which Mr. Reynolds had accused the club of breach of duty of care for not asking him to resign was not passed by the court as a case of negligence. Moreover, Reynolds was held responsible for his own actions.
Remedy
Compensation for the plaintiff would include loss of his future ability to earn income as he would not be able to continue with his career along with costs of the personal injury. The defendant could try to prove the injury was Contributory Negligence to reduce the damages (Hackshaw and Smith, 1984) claiming the sticker was present to alert hence the individual knew about the consequences. This case would not work in this case due to the sheer incompetence displayed by the store in the case, and a reasonable person would not expect a blade to fall off a machine that was kept in display.
Recommendation and Conclusion
This incident occurred because of serious lapse in the standards from the store. To avoid this, there are various steps that store could have taken to prevent suffering financial and goodwill loss due to such an incident.
There needs to be strict protocol in place to deal with faulty product, maintaining a zero-tolerance policy. Keep a regular check of all equipment, and maintain a database tracking these activities. The particular dispute that took place in the store can be avoided because the management of the store is more careful towards the products that they are giving to their customers. More safety measures should be installed inside the store. Moreover, the equipment that is more prone to cause accidents if not appropriately handled should be pointed out, and the storekeepers should brief the required steps to use these pieces of machinery to the respective customers. Additionally, this category of device can only be tested under the storekeeper’s supervision. Moreover, more staff should be allocated to the second section of the store so that every customer can be assisted and guided irrespective of the fact that they need the assistance or not. They must have a guideline and policy in place to avoid mishaps despite taking all the necessary precautions.