Loud & clear?

In the first industrial deafness case to reach the Supreme Court—Baker v Quantum Clothing Group and others [2011] UKSC 17, [2011] All ER (D) 137 (Apr)—the court found in favour of the appellant employers by a majority of 3:2. In the process, the long-standing Court of Appeal authority on the interpretation of the Factories Act 1961 (FaA 1961), s 29, Larner v British Steel [1993] 4 All ER 102, [1993] ICR 551 was overruled. The decision could potentially have a marked impact on personal injury claims.

Section 29

Section 29 of FaA 1961, provides that “every place at which any person has at any time to work…shall, so far as is reasonably practicable, be made and kept safe for any person working there”.
The appellants argued that s 29 applied only to the structure and fabric of factory premises and not to processes carried on there. Noise, it was argued, required someone to be exposed for many years to suffer material injury.