A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum

[donlever]

I deal with this shit all the time.

When you hire somebody YOU are responsible to make sure they are qualified AND adequately set up for safety with a proper program in place to ensure the health and welfare of their workers.

I can not emphasize enough the seriousness of this.

Most times people get lucky and fuck all goes wrong.

Butt.

If someone dies in your employ as a subcontractor get a good lawyer.

As reported by the Canadian Press (and available on line)...for the protection of all, this is alleged responsibility and not a commentary by this poster or this site as to guilt or innocence of anyone named:

A report by WorkSafeBC says former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell did not properly oversee safety measures at his summer home where a roofer fell to his death last year.

Dave Lesko, 40, died July 4, 2011, after falling through a skylight opening at the home in Halfmoon Bay on the Sunshine Coast, west of Vancouver.

WorkSafe says Campbell was considered the "Prime Contractor" on the job site, but didn't meet the responsibilities for co-ordinating health and safety activities, although it also says Campbell wasn't aware he was considered the prime contractor or the responsibilities that carried, said a report from CKAY radio on the Sunshine Coast.

[topcornermax]

Some times she goes some times she doesn't but no matter how she goes its the way she goes!

[Vpete]

I deal with this shit all the time.

When you hire somebody YOU are responsible to make sure they are qualified AND adequately set up for safety with a proper program in place to ensure the health and welfare of their workers.

I can not emphasize enough the seriousness of this.

Most times people get lucky and fuck all goes wrong.

Butt.

If someone dies in your employ as a subcontractor get a good lawyer.

As reported by the Canadian Press (and available on line)...for the protection of all, this is alleged responsibility and not a commentary by this poster or this site as to guilt or innocence of anyone named:

A report by WorkSafeBC says former B.C. premier Gordon Campbell did not properly oversee safety measures at his summer home where a roofer fell to his death last year.

Dave Lesko, 40, died July 4, 2011, after falling through a skylight opening at the home in Halfmoon Bay on the Sunshine Coast, west of Vancouver.

WorkSafe says Campbell was considered the "Prime Contractor" on the job site, but didn't meet the responsibilities for co-ordinating health and safety activities, although it also says Campbell wasn't aware he was considered the prime contractor or the responsibilities that carried, said a report from CKAY radio on the Sunshine Coast.

That's interesting.

I hired roofers to replace my shingles, fix various aspects of the roof and build a knee wall inside my attic. I paid a company to do this. I did not 'hire' them. They were not my employees they were a company which specializes in the trade of roofing. As the person who foots the final bill am I responsible for their safety training before they go onto my property? Am i responsible for to make sure that they are all versed in the latest and most obvious safety standards for a profession and trade I know nothing about?

Is it reasonable to expect a person to be aware that he or she is deemed the primary contractor when paying for a person to perform work which they may have represented themselves to be equipped and able to perform?

'Ol Gordo has insurance and that's what it's there for but it seems highly unlikely to me that he gets left on the hook for much of anything.

[donlever]

...unfortunately we can debate it all we like Pete. Use semantics where we will. This is becoming an increasingly problematic area of the construction industry. If you "hire" Billy Bob and Bobby Ray to do your roofing for you and they have no allowance for occupational health and welfare and no plan for safety on the site and one of their guys bites it, loses an arm, an eye, whatever, someone will come looking for you and at the very least rattle your cage.

You are in Manitoba right Pete.

I quickly grabbed this from your OHSA act...

Owners are by default the Prime Contractor. Unless you enter a contract with a competent employer to serve as the Prime Contractor, your legal duties also include (WSH Act section 7 (2) (a))

...so if YOU (thats YOU Pete) do not ensure the competency of the company you hire that makes you prime and therefore responsible for the safety of the project.

More and more OHSA is making the home or building owner responsible for the welfare of those employed to work on their properties.

What has to happen is that a company needs to accept liablity as prime contractor on site to remove the onus from the building owner. This means you have to hire the right people who are licenced, insured, covered by the local OHSA board AND have a proper and up to date health and safety plan in place both generally and for each individual project.

There is precedent set already in Canada where owners have been held liable on things just like this.

We are talking mega fines and the threat of jail time.

The price is not always right.

Gordo has lots of coin and high priced lawyers so he'll fight the shit out of it but the truth is that someone will be looking for cash out of him be it the family of the guy who dies or whichever entity pays them out.

[donlever]

...and here is a quote from act 7.2 from the Manitoba Board of Health and Safety.

DUTIES OF OWNERS

7.2 Every owner of a workplace shall

(a) ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the land or premises used as a workplace that is under his or her control is provided and maintained in a manner that does not create a risk to the safety or health of any person;

(b) co-operate with any other person exercising a duty imposed by this Act or the regulations; and

(c) comply with this Act and the regulations.

I put a portion of (a) in italics. Before you go off all half cocked and sart using "reasonably practicable" as your defense mechanism fugedaboudit!

They see through this in a New York minute and are just waiting for someone to tell them they presumed/assumed that in hiring a "reputable, long standing trade" that everything was going to be okey fukin dokey.

Not so.

Dig a little deeper, read the fine print, get the paperwork.

Always make sure that the company you hire has up to date insurance with more than enough liability coverage to handle anything that could possibly happen, however remote, (also check for the deductible...lots of high deductibles out there which means you could be chasing the individual or company as insurance ain't paying) AND make sure they have current and fully paid OHSA coverage with whichever is the entity that handles this in your province.

Cover your ass.

[rats19]

Lever is correct cover your ass.

As a homeowner acting as the general contractor elevated your level of responsibility. Even If you just hire someone to fix a deck railing. Make sure they have wcb at the least. A full operating general liability policy as well.

Oh and paying cash with no Invoice a company Info/logo...not smart.

Sued, being sued, in process of....words to avoid like the plague you don't want it.

[Per]

...and here is a quote from act 7.2 from the Manitoba Board of Health and Safety.

DUTIES OF OWNERS

7.2 Every owner of a workplace shall

(a) ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the land or premises used as a workplace that is under his or her control is provided and maintained in a manner that does not create a risk to the safety or health of any person;

(b) co-operate with any other person exercising a duty imposed by this Act or the regulations; and

(c) comply with this Act and the regulations.

I put a portion of (a) in italics. Before you go off all half cocked and sart using "reasonably practicable" as your defense mechanism fugedaboudit!

They see through this in a New York minute and are just waiting for someone to tell them they presumed/assumed that in hiring a "reputable, long standing trade" that everything was going to be okey fukin dokey.

Not so.

Dig a little deeper, read the fine print, get the paperwork.

Always make sure that the company you hire has up to date insurance with more than enough liability coverage to handle anything that could possibly happen, however remote, (also check for the deductible...lots of high deductibles out there which means you could be chasing the individual or company as insurance ain't paying) AND make sure they have current and fully paid OHSA coverage with whichever is the entity that handles this in your province.

Cover your ass.

It's basically the same here in Sweden. You have to make sure that the contractor you hire is registered with the authorities and has the right credentials. If you don't and they don't have the proper paper work in place, you may be considered the contractor yourself, and the people you hired are your employees... Not only does that make you responsible for injuries etc, but you may also have to pay for mandatory health insurance and pension plans... To prove the similarities, our former PM, Göran Persson did the exact same mistake...

And the funniest thing; as a social democrat, a party with close ties to the blue collar trade unions, irresponsible employers would be one of those things he used to rail about...

[Reefer2]

I live in a townhouse complex and we registered our own Strata for all work being done at the site, sometimes work is minor and we just need a "handy" man but they don't have coverage so we do it. It amounts to a few $$ per year but we could pay bigger $$ to a company with everything and our job is really minor to them or we pay $$$$ for our insurance premiums as they sky rocket because of a claim.

Correct me if I am wrong but Prime Contractor only occurs if there are more than 1 company is on site working. If you hired 1 company to do all the work ensure you a) see a copy of their up to date insurance (we ask for $2M to $4M coverage) and b) check their registration on your local WCB site and c) ensure their contract clearly lays our the rules you will operate under.

If you are looking at remodelling your house just register and pay a little vs. paying a lot later, you cannot always use ignorance of the law as an excuse.

[donlever]

...not only their registration but also that they have satisfied their remittance requirements to the board.

This should be verified each and every time you give them a cheque. There is something called a WCB clearance form which all companies have instant access to and can easily forward with their invoices.

You should also be getting a statuatory declaration with the second invoice and all others up to and including the final hold back billing. This protects you against getting sued by an employee, subcontractor or material distributor who has not been paid by the company.

Two million may seem like a lot Reef but think of it this way.

Say you hire a plumber, he has two milion in liablity insurance. He goes up into your attic and does some welding. Some slag drips down and settles in a bit of sawdust a roofer left behind when cutting the roof deck for a vent installation.

Five hours later a fire starts.

Who knows where it goes from there. Does half the complex go up because no one notices in the middle of the night.

What if someone dies?

Ask the people at Le Chateau in Coquitlam how the liability insurance (probably 5 million) for their contractor is working out for them because, even though the inital damage estimates are 4 million that is always going to be low and you have to add into the fact that people need to be housed et cetera for a period of up to a year while reconstruction occurs.

The size of stuff I handle most people ask for 5 million minimum.

I carry 10 as a standard and occasionally have to up that for specific projects.

[Vpete]

...and here is a quote from act 7.2 from the Manitoba Board of Health and Safety.

DUTIES OF OWNERS

7.2 Every owner of a workplace shall

(a) ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, that the land or premises used as a workplace that is under his or her control is provided and maintained in a manner that does not create a risk to the safety or health of any person;

(b) co-operate with any other person exercising a duty imposed by this Act or the regulations; and

(c) comply with this Act and the regulations.

I put a portion of (a) in italics. Before you go off all half cocked and sart using "reasonably practicable" as your defense mechanism fugedaboudit!

They see through this in a New York minute and are just waiting for someone to tell them they presumed/assumed that in hiring a "reputable, long standing trade" that everything was going to be okey fukin dokey.

Not so.

Dig a little deeper, read the fine print, get the paperwork.

Always make sure that the company you hire has up to date insurance with more than enough liability coverage to handle anything that could possibly happen, however remote, (also check for the deductible...lots of high deductibles out there which means you could be chasing the individual or company as insurance ain't paying) AND make sure they have current and fully paid OHSA coverage with whichever is the entity that handles this in your province.

Cover your ass.

Interesting stuff.

The reason I used the term 'reasonable' is that it's a key term in any insurance case when going to court. For myself, some one who owns a business or two I should be aware of OHSA as I have to be compliant in my work environment. For the average guy who needs a trade to so something, that's a big stretch in 'reasonable' IMHO.

You mention that the company should have insurance? What good will it do if the homeowner is held liable? It is the homeowner who needs insurance, liability specifically and lots of it.

So let's take a look at the insurance policies.... Company A has insurance, they then go out for work and are hired by Vpete. Being savvy I say, "You go get your insurance guy to throw 'ol Vpete' on as additional insured on your policy for the duration of this job. Better yet, you throw 'ol Vpete on as additional named insured for the duration of this job".

So when the roofer slides off the roof and is either killed or permanently injured I can claim on his or her employer's insurance policy rather than my own. The lawyers then get a little messed up in their 'shotgun' approach. But that's just the beginning because wait, I don't have to hire a lawyer, my insurance company does.

See these insurance company lawyers, evil I tell ya, real bad people they are. They have what, 1, 2, 5 million reasons to want 'ol Vpete to look like he did everything he could to make sure that roofer was prepared.

The who 'reasonably practicable' is still an argument with merit, it has to be or why put it in the OHSA? Is it reasonably practicable for a homeowner to ensure that person in their employee (as defined by the terms in the act) adhered to all OHSA standards at all times while in the course of the job over an 8-10 hour day? That's where these insurance lawyers come in because their bosses HATE paying money more than anyone when they don't have too.

I may not have known about the OHSA act but is it 'reasonably practicable' that I should be on site to enforce it to protect myself? I say no and I bet most insurance companies do too as they don't put that restriction on their liability coverage for homeowners, or the businesses.

It's interesting stuff Donny and as I'm about to hire a contractor for gutting my basement I'll be doing a little more checking into some things.

[rats19]

Don't forget to advise vpetes broker of the upcoming renovations. Also I seriously doubt you will get anything more than the additional Insured extension. Make sure they have wcb .

But I am Impressed you knew about both...lol

[Reefer2]

I agree Donny – we ask for $2M to $4M from our vendors to provide to us based upon the type of services they provide to us (my contracts are low risk as it is not construction). I am in the business so I do everything I can do to reduce risk for the company I work for.

Engineering companies are interesting, they want keep their liability to what they are paid. So you can pay an engineer $50k and based upon their input/advice something happens and it causes a death, their liability limit is $50k. Again we say no – regardless of what the value of the contract the insurance must be what we want or they don’t get the business.

I write contracts for a living and it always amazes me what vendors think we will accept, look at the liability clause and see what they can be held responsible for. If the contract is important spend the $$ and have your lawyer review and provide feedback. You only need to do it once or twice and you can use the same wording for other vendors.

[donlever]

Yeah I remember your job description, sounds like you have everything under control.

Engineers and Consultants are a blast.

They set everything up...design, details, the works...and then off load the responsibility on to me (or try to) all the time.

[Vpete]

So I emailed a friend I know from kids hockey about the MB OHSA. He's a govt lawyer who helps draft this nonsense.

'so Phil, what's the deal with all this stuff in here when I hire a guy to work on my house?'

' oh that, yeah, don't let anyone get hurt.'

'it's that bad? '

'you're insured right?'

'yes'

'well you've got that to fall back on to lessen the load'.

Think I'll buy some personal umbrella liability.

[SKYO]

Farhan Lalji tap that 19 year old.