Introduction to Fire Safety Management

1.4.5 Civil 
law
Civil law has its roots in ancient laws from the 11th cen-
tury and beyond and is most likely to be encountered 
relative to workplace conduct as ‘common law’. It deals 
with the manner in which individuals should conduct 
their affairs in modern society.
It is not laid down by statute but rather is found as 
an accumulation of decisions made by judges in individ-
ual cases. This process is referred to as a precedent 
whereby as each case is decided in court principles of 
law are established.
A fundamental principle that has been established 
by common law in the UK is that people have a ‘duty 
of care’ towards others who may be affected by what 
they do. In the case of health and safety, this duty has 
been expanded by a judicial precedent to be a duty of 
‘reasonable care’. When determining what is meant by 
reasonable care the courts will take into account the 
qualifi 
cations, experience, age, locality, intelligence, 
seniority and skills of the individuals concerned.
For example, it is likely that the courts will fi nd that 
reasonable care has been exercised by a company 
when making arrangements for the safe evacuation of 
a building in the case of fi re if it has ensured suffi cient 
arrangements for the management of the young, infi rm, 
disabled and sensory impaired persons.
Negligence
The term ‘tort’ means a civil wrong committed by one 
party against another. In the case of occupational 
health and safety, the tort of negligence is of particular 
interest.
The tort of negligence involves more than simply 
careless conduct causing a loss to an individual. For a 
civil law claim of negligence to succeed, the claimant 
must prove three elements:
1. That a duty of ‘reasonable care’ was owed to the 
claimant by the defendant
2. That the duty of ‘reasonable care’ was breached
3. That the claimant suffered a loss as a result of the 
breach of duty of reasonable care.