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Put safety first!
By Lauren | August 21, 2009
Continuing my Friday series about keeping your business out of court, let’s move from the contractual realm to the physical. If you have a brick-and-mortar business, various people come in and out of your facility: customers, employees, vendors, and anyone else who happens to drop by. If one of them gets injured on your property, you may be facing a lawsuit.
With customers and vendors, the goal is to provide premises that are physically safe - no slippery stairs, overloaded stock shelves, holes in the carpet, or other accidents waiting to happen. Fix them before someone is harmed. And if you offer a product that’s fun but potentially dangerous like horseback rides or a rock-climbing wall, take the necessary steps to minimize the risk that someone will get hurt. Those “ride at your own risk” posters won’t necessarily keep you out of court if one of your customers is seriously injured.
You also have to be careful that your employees are protected from job-related injuries. Ask your lawyer how health-and-safety regulations apply to your company’s operations. Be sure to carefully control employees’ exposure to hazardous substances. Supply necessary safety gear, and make it a condition of continued employment for your employees to use it. If you routinely allow employees to go without necessary protection (hardhats, goggles, safety masks, or gloves, for example), you could be found negligent if one of them gets hurt, even if it was the employee’s failure to wear required gear that caused or contributed to the injury. Make sure you have fire and other emergency evacuation plans in place and that your employees know how to implement them. And don’t skimp on necessary breaks. Letting your employees rest for a few minutes now and then may seem like a waste of your company’s money, but it’s far less expensive than a lawsuit.
Be careful, too, that your premises are emotionally safe. Employers don’t always think of problems like workplace discrimination or sexual harassment as safety issues, but they can cause very real emotional injury to employees and, depending on the circumstances, customers and vendors. The law already prohibits most employers from tolerating discrimination or harassment on their premises, but safeguarding against them has the added benefit of keeping expensive emotional distress claims from being added to any lawsuit against you.
When it comes to legally-threatening accidents, prevention is definitely the best medicine. Periodically reviewing your premises for safety problems and fixing them can go a long way toward keeping you and your company out of court.
Topics: Business Ethics, corporate responsibility, customer relations, ethics |