A principal contractor who permits a subcontractor's employee to operate its equipment, without inquiring into the person's training or experience and relying solely on the person's self-assessment of competence, breaches its duty of care to other workers on site. Where the negligence creates or substantially increases the risk of injury from unsafe operation, and that risk eventuates, causation is established on a broad common sense view even where the plaintiff's own conduct also contributed to the accident. An apportionment of 20% contributory negligence was appropriate where the plaintiff threw an object towards the operator but the defendant's negligence in permitting an inexperienced operator created the underlying risk.
The full text is available to signed-in members, including the 9 later cases that cite this judgment.