Octoberbrochure - (Page 7) When is a Door Not a Door? One of the strange things about practice at the Bar is that you can never predict which will be the cases that will really get under your skin. They are rarely the most important and it is most certainly not a requirement that they are most meritorious. They as just the ones that drive you to distraction. Hammond v Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis (2004) EWCA Civ. 830 was one of those cases. For all those I have bored senseless with this case over the years I apologise for one more telling of this tale of woe. Mr Hammond worked for the police in the garage that repaired and maintained police vehicles. A patrol car was brought in for a service. Mr Hammond decided to change the tyres. He used a standard ‘knuckle’ bar to loosen the wheel nuts. One nut sheered off as he tried to undo it and his hand struck the concrete floor. He developed regional pain syndrome in his dominant hand and never returned to Or how the House of Lords will finally save me from having to buy a round work as a mechanic, the only job for which he was trained. HHJ Simpson, in a moment of clarity and humanity, found liability established with a 50% finding of contributory negligence. Brooke LJ, May LJ and Eady J had no problem in allowing the appeal on the basis that there was no possible way that the wheel nut could be work equipment as it was something Mr Hammond was ‘working on’ not ‘working with’. The fact that such a ruling meant that no maintenance man or person assembling items of a production line would ever receive the benefit of protection under the Regulations troubled them not at all. I duly Petitioned the House of Lords who rejected the petition on the grounds that there was a ‘line of authorities’ supporting the Court of Appeal’s position. For the last four years I have presented a standing offer of a case of champagne to anyone who can identify just one case that fell within this line of authorities. In Spencer Franks v Kellog Brown & Root Limited (2008) UKHL 46 the House of Lords recently reconsidered these issues. The Claimant was a maintenance engineer on a North Sea Oil Rig. He was sent to repair a ‘door closing’ device of an external door. As he worked on the device it broke and a spring flew into his eye. The House of Lords, in a commendably short Judgment, stated that it was quite obvious that the door closer was working equipment and that strict Editor – Aileen Downey Simon Carr liability applied. When, unsurprisingly, they were referred to Hammond they collectively shook their heads and stated that it was equally obvious to anyone reading the facts of that case that it had been wrongly decided. How, they posed with a resigned sigh, could anyone say that the wheel nut in Hammond was not work equipment just because Mr Hammond was working on it rather than with it. As a gentle throw away line they questioned whether Mr Hammond had been ‘supplied’ with the wheel nut so as to come within the regulations but formed no final view. As Mr Spencer Evans was held to have been supplied with the door closer it may be an issue will not be something that would need to be litigated further. To finally close this chapter, and allow me to complete my CBT in peace, I record the following; the constitution of the House of Lords that rejected my Petition were fully represented in the most recent case. It seems therefore, the next one of your CFAs that starts its passage through the appellant system, you may wonder whether it would be better to simply ask the insurers if they want to toss a coin and save some time. Mr Hammond, who retrained after three years in a job that paid him £10,000 less a year, must be smiling as we speak at the irony of it all. Simon Carr Managing Editor – John Kerr, Chief Executive Chambers of Grahame Aldous QC, 9 Gough Square, London EC4A 3DG. T: 020 7832 0500 F: 020 7353 1344 E: jkerr@9goughsquare.co.uk DX: LDE 439 Videoconference: 020 7832 0592 View our news online at www.9goughsquare.co.uk 7 http://www.9goughsquare.co.uk
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