The Ontario Court of Appeal recently granted leave to appeal to Blue Mountain Resorts Ltd. (Blue Mountain), from the recent decision of the Ontario Divisional Court, which was discussed in an earlier post. On December 24, 2007 a guest at Blue Mountain's unsupervised swimming pool drowned. Blue Mountain did not report the fatality to the Ministry of Labour, as it did not believe that under the Occupational Health and Safety Act (the OHSA) it was required to report an incident that did not involve a worker. The Court held that Blue Mountain was required to report the incident, thereby significantly expanding the scope of what employers had previously understood to be their reporting requirements under the OHSA. Until the Court of Appeal rules on this issue, when determining whether to report an incident involving a non-worker, an employer will need to consider whether a worker could have been potentially affected by the hazard that caused the incident. If the answer is "yes", the employer is likely under an obligation to report the incident to the Ministry of Labour. We will provide an update upon the release of the Court of Appeal's decision.
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