Employer prosecuted and forced to pay compensation for failure to safeguard worker injured by violent customer
An employee in a shop was verbally abused, and then attacked with a bike lock, by a violent customer. She received injuries on her right hand and on the side of her head. Luckily the shop had CCTV, and the customer was charged and pleaded guilty.
Meanwhile, the employee brought a legal claim against the employer on grounds it hadn’t done a health and safety risk assessment or drafted a safety statement, which was negligent and in breach of its duties under health and safety laws.
The court agreed, and also found:
- that the employer hadn’t properly trained its employees; and
- the staff handbook didn’t provide enough guidance and adequate information
on how to deal with aggressive and/or violent customers.
It rejected the shop owner’s argument that this sort of attack had never happened before, and was so infrequent and unlikely a possibility that failing to cover it in staff training or the staff handbook was not a breach of the employer’s health and safety duties. It said that aggression was a feature of modern life, particularly if drink and drugs were involved, and pointed out that anti-social and unlawful behaviour ‘is precisely why shops … are required to be staffed by security personnel and fitted a myriad of security devices such as … CCTV monitoring systems’.
The shop owner also claimed that the employee had contributed to her own injuries because of the poor way she had handled the situation – that she was guilty of contributory negligence.
The court disagreed. It said there could be no contributory negligence if the employee hadn’t been trained or taught how to deal with aggressive customers.
As well as the criminal consequences of breaching its duties the employer had to pay the employee general damages of €50,000 and special damages of €18,636.14.
The case makes clear the importance of training staff dealing with the public to handle aggression and attacks, backed up by handbooks, policies and procedures, and that employers must carry out health and safety assessments and publish a safety statement, to safeguard their staff and avoid both criminal liability and significant financial penalties.
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