An Ontario judge has allowed an injured worker to proceed with his lawsuit against a coworker for failing to report the absence of or defect in fall arrest equipment.
The injured worker was hired by a friend to assist in roofing a customer's house. He fell from the roof and was badly injured. He was not wearing appropriate fall arrest equipment.
The injured worker sued his friend and the homeowner. He sought to later add a coworker and his company (who apparently were there on the day of the accident, and also completed the roofing work after the accident) as defendants to the lawsuit. The coworker sought to have the claim against him and his company struck out, arguing that there was no legal cause of action against him. The judge disagreed. He stated that the injured worker had an "arguable cause of action" against the coworker and his company for negligence, "informed by their failure to report . . . the absence of or defect in any safety equipment [the injured worker] used or any unsafe conditions or contravention of the OSHA [sic] or regulations thereunder, pursuant to s. 28(1)(c) or (d)" of the OHSA.
Those sections of the OHSA impose a legal duty on each worker to "report to his or her employer or supervisor the absence of or defect in any equipment or protective device of which the worker is aware and which may endanger himself, herself or another worker" and "report to his or her employer or supervisor any contravention of this Act or the regulations or the existence of any hazard of which he or she knows."
Interestingly, the parties appear not to have argued whether the injured worker's lawsuit was barred by the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act because the injury arose out of and in the course of employment.
MacPherson v Samuel, 2017 ONSC 2024 (CanLII)
For more information, visit our Occupational Health & Safety Law blog at www.occupationalhealthandsafetylaw.com
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