Site-Specific Safety Plans
Practical Techniques Accomplish OSHA
Compliance and Create a Defense against Negligence
Heavy
Equipment News, August 2002
By Robert Baldwin, Safety Resources, Inc.
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We all have the basic responsibility under the law to act
with care in the conduct of our affairs. The word negligence is defined as “the
failure to exercise the care that a reasonable person would exercise under the
circumstances.”
In order to win a negligence lawsuit against a company, a
plaintiff must prove four elements of negligence:
- a duty of reasonable care;
- breach of duty of care;
- injury caused by the breach of duty of care; and
- damages sustained by the plaintiff.
In civil cases, the duty of care is an obligation imposed
by the law on the basis of what is necessary to protect others from harm. This
obligation is not a fixed standard; it is flexible, based on what a reasonable
person would do under the same circumstances. The reasonable person is a
fictional character whose conduct is judged by other persons in the same or
similar circumstances as opposed to the general conduct of society. How does
this relate to workplace safety?
Employers are obligated by the OSHA General Duty Clause.
Thus, the first condition is satisfied. Does this mean employers will always be
liable for negligence if an injury happens? The practical answer is no. The
challenge for safety professionals is to accurately define the limits of
employers’ duty with integrity and in a defendable manner.
One approach is the site-specific safety plan. This
establishes a structure by which the employer can take a formal approach to
determining or anticipating the potential hazards existing within a given set of
circumstances, acknowledging the hazards, formulating a response plan to the
hazards, implementing the plan, and monitoring for compliance and changing
conditions. Developing a site specific safety plan provides a mechanism by which
the hazard exposures and the duties of all those involved can be specifically
delineated. In other words, for every employer involved, a specific can be
established. The risk responsibility of duty can then be shared.
Developing a Site-Specific Plan
The mechanics of setting up site-specific plans are
straightforward and follow these three simple but powerful questions:
- What do I have?
- How can these hazards hurt employees?
- What can I do about them?
Developing a site-specific plan then follows the sequential
thinking imposed by these questions.
What Do I Have?
Having some understanding of the discrete tasks to be
accomplished and the human resources that will be assigned to these tasks is
critical in determining the nature and existence of hazards. Tasks may involve
inherent hazards. For instance, working with any form of machine contains the
inherent hazard of energy control; performing work on any construction site
involves the inherent hazard of load handling and working at elevation.
Understanding tasks serves to focus on just those hazards encountered by the
task-performance group.
In addition, asking the question, “What do I have?”
provides a focus on the environment in which work is to be accomplished. Issues
of vehicle-traffic management, confined space, elevated work, weather conditions
and industrial hygiene are components of the hazard analysis.
Therefore, the “What do I have?” question provides the
basis for determining hazards within the context of what is to be done and who
will do it.
How Can It Hurt?
The next question provides focus on the issue of exposure.
If we understand what is to be done and by whom, then we can narrow the efforts
of our planning to the issue of what hazards the task group will be exposed to
while accomplishing its work. When multiple employers are involved in the task
accomplishment process, the answer to this question is particularly critical
because it assists with determining the limits of duty for each employer.
Assuming that all employer work groups thoroughly determine
their hazard exposures, the comprehensive hazard exposures for the entire
efforts are determined as a cumulation of these discrete task groups’ hazard
exposures. The importance of this concept is critical to the owner or general
contractor’s risk management. One may not necessarily be accountable for the
determination of all hazards if all work groups have made an adequate self
determination. The existence of each and every self-hazard determination is the
cornerstone of the knowledge affirmative defense with OSHA.