Employee Accidents at Work in the Bahamas – Is It Always the Employer’s Fault?

Under the Health and Safety at Work Act, 2002 it is the duty of every employer to ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, the health, safety and welfare at work of all its employees. The employer’s duty extends in particular to:

The Act also imposes a duty on every employee while at work to take reasonable care for their own health and safety and that of other persons who may be affected by their acts or omissions at work.

At common law an employer owes its employee a duty of care to provide a competent staff, adequate plant and equipment, a safe system of work with effective supervision and a safe place of work. At common law, an employee also has a duty to take reasonable care for their own safety.

The employer’s duty of care is not a strict or absolute duty to prevent any and all damage to an employee, rather the duty is to take reasonable steps to ensure the health and safety at work of an employee. The duty of the employer is not to guarantee the complete safety of an employee or to eliminate the danger completely. The test is whether the safety measures that were implemented by the employer were reasonable.

An employee will be expected to show the degree of knowledge normally expected of a person holding that particular position and the employee takes upon themselves the risks normally incidental to that position. Where an employee undertakes to do work which is intrinsically dangerous, notwithstanding that reasonable care has been taken to render the work as safe as possible, the employee voluntarily subjects themselves to the risks inevitably accompanying the work and if the employee suffers an accident, they cannot be permitted to complain that a wrong has been done to them by their employer. It has to be recognised that there are inherent dangers in certain workplaces and, notwithstanding best efforts, accidents will occur.

In the judgment of the Bahamas Supreme Court in the case of Adrianna Thompson v Clearview Management Ltd. dba Sandals Grande Emerald Bay [2022] 1 BHS J. No. 13, the Sandals Resort was successful in defending a claim for damages brought by an employee, a room attendant, arising out of a slip and fall accident which occurred while the room attendant was carrying out her cleaning duties. In its judgment the Court dismissed the plaintiff’s action and in doing so held that the employer’s duty of care does not warrant the safety of the employee’s employment.

The employer undertakes only to take reasonable precautions to protect the employee against accidents. The mere fact that an injury is sustained by a person on the premises of another, even in the workplace, does not, on its own, establish negligence. Each person while performing their duty as an employee has to assume a measure of responsibility for their own safety and has to be alert to hazards which exist in the workplace. The taking of precautions does not eliminate, but merely minimises, the inherent risks which exist in the workplace. The employee accepts those risks.  

The fact that an employee suffers an accident while at work does not automatically render the employer liable for the accident. In many instances an accident is just that, an accident, for which no one is to blame.