Responsibilities for farmers as employers: Know your risks and obligations
Farmers are responsible for visitors or employees on their lands, writes
Farms can be potentially dangerous places with slurry pits, electric fences, farm machinery and livestock all posing dangers to people on the farm.
Farms are especially dangerous for people who have no prior experience of working on a farm, and for children and the elderly.
Landowners owe a duty of care to people on their land. The duty owed to each class of person is different and depends on their relationship to the farmer.
For example, while a duty of care is owed to both a visitor and a trespasser, the standard owed to a visitor is much higher.
The Occupier’s Liability Act 1995 outlines the duty of care owed to visitors, recreational users, and trespassers. A landowner must take reasonable care that visitors do not suffer harm due to the state of the premises, although a visitor has to take reasonable care for their own safety.
In terms of recreational users and trespassers, a landowner owes a duty not to deliberately injure and not to act with reckless disregard for his or her safety.
The most important issue arising from this is that farmers, being landowners, could be held liable for harm caused to a recreational user or trespasser where the danger is not obvious.
For example, a trespasser who falls down a hole which is covered by grass and breaks his leg would potentially be able to sue the landowner for failing to warn potential entrants to the land of the danger, even though the land is privately owned. It is, therefore, of utmost importance for farmers to place warning signs of any dangers on their lands at the entrance to their lands, in order to avoid liability for any potential claims from entrants to their land.
Employees have many rights and it is the responsibility of the employer to ensure that all employees are treated correctly, in accordance with employment law.
Employment laws derive from the Irish Constitution, from common law, from legislation and from European Union Directives. It is important that farmers respect their employees’ rights in relation to minimum wage, break times, statutory leave and holidays, non-discrimination, and most importantly in the case of farmers to put adequate health and safety procedures in place to ensure the safety of employees.
Farmers should note that it is possible to be held vicariously liable for wrongs committed by an employee in the course of their employment.
This means that if a farmer employs another person to take part in activities which may pose a risk to a third party, that farmer must accept responsibility for any harm caused to the third party by his employee.
A farmer will not be held liable where his employee commits an intentional wrong unrelated to the work he is carrying out.
Vicarious liability has been found by the courts to exist in this country even where there is no contractual or formal legal relationship in place between the plaintiff and defendant.
Accordingly, it is very important for farmers who employ others to take care not to authorise acts which pose dangers or could be potentially negligent.
The law on health and safety in Ireland is governed by common law (judge-made law) and statute.
The main legislation providing for the health and safety of people in the workplace is the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 1989, as amended by the Health, Safety and Welfare of Work Act 2005.
Under the act there are a number of obligations or legal duties for a person controlling a workplace.
This would be particularly applicable to farmers with employees or bigger farms operating as companies.
Some of the obligations under the act and under health and safety law include a duty to carry out a risk assessment, have a safety statement in place and to provide training in respect of health and safety in the workplace.
If you are a farmer and an employer, it is important to have employer and public liability insurance in place to deal with any potential claims.
If there is a claim, you should immediately notify your insurer. It is also imperative that you ensure that there are health and safety measures in place to ensure employee, and entrant, safety and to guard against potential claims. If farmers are in doubt about potential liability it is advisable to obtain legal advice immediately.
