Introduction to Fire Safety Management

3.10
Case study
In 1996 the owners of a large chemical plant were pro-
secuted under section 33 of the Health and Safety at Work 
etc. Act 1974 as a result of their failure to comply with 
section 3(1) of HSWA when an employee of the special-
ist contractors, who had been hired to carry out a repair 
to the lining of a tank within the plant, was seriously 
injured as a result of inadequate fi re safety management.
During the case it was heard that acetone was 
ignited by a damaged light bulb.
The plant was shut down for its annual maintenance 
and a small fi rm of specialist contractors was repairing 
the lining of a tank. An employee of the contractors was 
working in the tank by the light of an electric light bulb 
attached to a lead.
Figure 3.13
Designers have a responsibility for the safety 
of all others

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Introduction to Fire Safety Management
56
After grinding the damaged area of the lining, the 
employee had to clean it down with acetone before 
applying a fi breglass matting patch with resin. Acetone 
is a volatile liquid that gives off highly fl ammable vapour. 
The acetone was an old paint bucket which he had 
found in a refuse bin. While he was applying the acetone 
with a brush, the light bulb broke. Some of the liquid 
had probably dripped onto it. As the acetone was in an 
open bucket there was a signifi cant amount of vapour in 
the tank.
The broken bulb caused a fl ash fi re as a result of 
which the contractor was badly burned.
The chemical company argued that the specialist 
contractor was in effect responsible in law for the injury 
to their own employee as the work was outside their 
own ‘undertaking’ and that the chemical company had 
in fact undertaken an appropriate level of selection and 
management of contractors and therefore could not be 
held liable.
This was countered by the HSE who argued that an 
employer is responsible for the safety of contractors if 
the contractor is engaged in work as part of the employ-
er’s ‘undertaking’.
On appeal, the court established the precedent that, 
if a company, in the course of its undertaking (which it 
was found in this case), creates a risk to contractors or 
members of the public, it has a duty to reduce those 
risks to the lowest level reasonably practicable. In this 
case, the court found that the chemical company had 
failed to discharge this duty and that they, as well as the 
specialist contractor, were in breach of their duty of care.
The company was fi ned a substantial sum, there was 
also signifi cant and ongoing damage to its corporate 
reputation from such a high profi le case.
In addition, the contractor’s employee was seriously 
injured. This might have been avoided if the company 
had accepted their full responsibility and looked beyond 
its own staff in terms of the application of health and 
safety procedures.