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PI Brief Update

Government Defeated on Strict Liability for Employers - Tim Kevan

Please note that despite the move by the House of Lords outlined below, the Bill was in fact subsequently passed by the Commons. For more see The Law Gazette.

08/03/13. The government’s radical plan to remove strict liability of employers in personal injury actions has been defeated in the House of Lords. Peers backed an amendment by Lord McKenzie which put paid to clause 61 of the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill. In effect the amendment would have shifted the burden back onto employees to prove negligence in all such claims.

This caused a huge amount of heated debate with concerns raised in particular that it would in effect be near impossible in some cases for employees to be able to gather sufficient evidence to be able to succeed. On the other side of the debate Earl Errol warned of the need to protect small businesses.

Eventually the clause was defeated by two votes with 225 in favour and 223 against.

Tim Kevan

Image cc flickr.com/photos/buggolo/2097137765/

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The opinions expressed in the articles are the authors' own, not those of Law Brief Publishing Ltd, and are not necessarily commensurate with general legal or medico-legal expert consensus of opinion and/or literature. Any medical content is not exhaustive but at a level for the non-medical reader to understand. 

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Excerpts from judgments and statutes are Crown copyright. Any Crown Copyright material is reproduced with the permission of the Controller of OPSI and the Queen’s Printer for Scotland under the Open Government Licence.