BLAW140- Week 3 Discussion

As a manager in a business setting, you should be keenly aware of how the law impacts your job and the professional lives of your employees.

Negligence in an employment situation is exceedingly rare because of workers’ compensation, which replaces employees’ traditional tort remedies with an employer-paid-for administrative remedy.  Workers’ compensation does not measure an injury by negligence standards and instead is a “no-fault” system.  Neither the employee nor the employer has a choice to use the traditional legal system for a work injury.

As a result, businesses in the United States owe a duty to exercise a reasonable degree of care (Duty of Care) to protect the public and employees from foreseeable risks that the owner knew or should have known about.

Common Examples of Duty of Care

An employee has work-related Repetitive Strain Injury (RSI) from repetitive hand movements. Symptoms include shooting pains in the hands, wrists and forearms. An example of duty of care is providing that worker with a specialist keyboard that allows them to complete tasks at work.An employee was involved in a car accident and is now confined to a wheelchair. Your duty of care, in this case, is to ensure the employee has access to any services or facilities your able-bodied employees have access to. You’ll need to provide wheelchair access and perhaps even reorganize aspects of the work environment. This is to ensure your disabled employees have just as many opportunities as your able-bodied workers.

You also have a legal duty to protect your employees from excessive levels of stress. One of the ways to do this is with a risk assessment. If upon completion of the assessment you discover areas within the business where employees experience high levels of stress, you have a duty of care to take steps to alleviate the causes.