200603 – Robinson – Common Law Safety Cases

A common law safety case is an argument as to why an organisation is confident that all
statutory, regulatory and common law obligations have been met. It is primarily a demonstration
that all sensible practicable precautions are in place.

This means that target risk levels are not strictly relevant. Legally at least, if a business or
activity is prohibitively ‘dangerous’ then it must be stopped. Otherwise the common law principle,
the balance of the significance of the risk versus the effort required to reduce it, applies. As
such, ‘risk’ is only invoked to test the value of the possible precautions, rather than the
significance of the ‘hazard’.