Criminal Law and Company Liabilities - Case Study Example

Criminal Law and Company Liabilities Name Lecturer Date Aspects Breaching the Criminal Law Criminal law relates to and deals with crime issues and governs individual, group and institutions. The body of laws and regulations determines the public conduct as it prescribes the issues and actions which threatens, harm or endanger safety, health and moral welfare of the community. It primarily details the mechanism to deal with different offenses and determining the punishment to the violators of prescribed laws (Rosner, p. 535). The ‘Bread Factory Horror’ case is a corporate reckless undertaking that involves an involuntary manslaughter categorized under criminal fatal offences. According to the principles which are followed to determine the criminal cases, the aspects of criminal law which were breached in the case are revealed by a guilty act enabled by the omission of an act which if considered by the necessary personnel would have been stopped. It involves a breach of Act and Regulations as set in the legal, technical and health provisions. The Fresha Bakery, Chief Engineer, Production and Managing Directors failed to act according to safety measure that pertains to work system thus omitting the prior known technical facts of thermal risks in relation to the repair. The company is required by the employee Act to lay down health and safety procedures and rules to be followed by the employees. The person who authorized the repair did not follow a lawful order (Simester, Gordon and Simester, p.11). The component of strict liability of criminal offence is manifest following the regulatory offenses in workplace Health and safety Act. According to Industrial Health Act- 1988, any forceful act is a strict liability offence such as the manager enforcing workers to carry on work identifiable hazardous facility and equipments (Kloss, p. 7). This is equivalent to an absolute liability, whereby managers’ carelessness endears it as a strict liability type of crime. The engineer was fully aware that the possibility for intervention was minimal. Once the repair process began, the conveyer belt would not at all reverse and this process. As much as there were conditions set for both workers to report an unsafe and situation that came to their attention in the oven, the engineer had no practicable measure to help. Most requirements of the employee are met to the point and this shift the blame to the company. The risk was visualized by the seniors as they agreed to carry on and this shift the responsibility to supervision sorely involving managers. The engineer is expected at all cost to have additional information to advice their workers accordingly. This is revealed by lack of any specified intention from the two workers to proceed with repairs until the company required them to do so (Rosner, p. 535). The industrial requirements set the duties and responsibilities in line with Occupational Health and Safety Act. One of the requirements is provision of employees with necessary equipments, information and protective devices. Little was done for workers protection and Mayes and Mr. Ericks had taken available measures as safety responsibility and for personal health. There was a poor assumption which was used for deciding the conditions of the facility and whether the undertaking would be hazardous and risky. The technical requirements are revealed in the case by the manufacturer’s 12 hours of cooling terms. The confirmation by the Chief Engineer confirmed of the lack of safety standard for the employee’s protection against serious physical harm and death. However, this is basic OSHA concern designed for all industries. The workplace Safety, Health and Welfare Act 2005 requires the employer to seek technical services from the competent people where necessary. This is also by ensuring there are prepared and constantly revised emergency plans to facilitate evacuation. The procedure in use should also clarify that reasonable practices are taken to ensure that employees are not exposed to health and safety risks (Beck and Woolfson, p. 37). Relatives’ options to pursue for civil action The company failed its legal responsibilities as stated in health and safety law for the organizations. There lacks a written safety and health policy as confirmed by the engineer. There are less seen actions to assess employees’ risks and other people who in a way would be affected by the company activities. There was no third party as a consultant for competent safety and health advice. Furthermore, the two employees were not consulted about the risks experienced and the necessary preventive or protective measures. The laxity to arrange an effective planning, control, organization, review and monitoring of measures still hold them. The controls measures set could not at all perform as they would have been expected and thus the outcomes became extremely serious. In most cases, disaster occurs without warning but this was not the case which supports the family members’ claims. The company’s control procedures lacked the effectiveness of safety precautions (Ashworth, p.235). The case shows insufficient importance that the other departments gave to company’s safety engineer. This reduced the opportunity to take the necessary risk reduction measures. The holistic achievable measures depend on managerial processes also to spot and minimize the hazards. That risk has human, technological and organizational factors at play and that is why it spans the whole company. As various managing roles determine the actions toward safety and health a considerable risk for the two men repairing the oven just after 2 hours from baking temperature of 260 degrees would never be assumed. This role of the three Fresha staff including Managing Director, Production Director and Chief Engineer involved makes them liable to the workers death (Weissmann, p.45). The precautions taken only allowed the benefits to the company as long as all went well. The workers going through the hatch entrance was meant for the company to avoid cost to remove the side panels. Having confirmed the oven outer side heating at 40 degrees was not a satisfactory proves to allow the repairs. The suit, gloves, hat, elbow and knee pads cannot substantiate for safety requirement since they minimally reduced the chances of dying. The engineer was fully aware that there were no measures to reverse the used conveyer belts. The act was thus more toward intentional due to grossly negligence. The portable radios did not confirm that the repair was in employees’ best interests and there was no need for relaying the terrifying messages if there was no means provided and available for evacuation. It was not reasonable for the company to conclude on repair knowingly that the workers’ best interest were undermined to a larger degree, as there was in no way means to stop it once a harmful prospects was identified (Moore, p. 48). Proof for an action to succeed There are legal liabilities following safety and health failures. Any offence related to safety and health committed by consent of participation or is attributed to neglect by manager, director and similar officer in the organization leads the person and the organization to be liable for prosecution. This is well set under Health and Safety at Work Act section 37. It is impossible for the directors to avoid neglect charges by arranging the organization’s business and leaving ignorant circumstances that trigger an obligation of addressing safety and health breaches. The fines and imprisonment to the guilty may apply in some cases. Furthermore the courts are empowered disqualifies individuals managers convicted of offences connected to management. The 2007 Act of Corporate Manslaughter together with Corporate Homicide will establish an offence was committed by senior management through substantial gross breach of duty of care to organizational employees leading to death. The liability of the organization is established by safety and health breaches as they actions did not regard the safety guidance. As Dressler and Moritz (p. 34) argues, generally, criminal laws prohibit undesirable acts and thus the proof of a crime would require a proof of some act. The guilty act involved in this case, which is also based on modern regulatory offenses, makes it a strict liability offense. This is because; repairs were directed when the oven heat was above the prescribed limit. There is sure physical element in committing crime. This followed an omission to inform and wait for the prescribed hours. There was also lack of effective safety equipment to carry on the repairs inside a hot oven. The duty of are arises through the Chief Engineer and Directors official positions. They consented and assumed the existing dangerous situation. This was a glossy negligent and thus crime took place. Since Mr. Mayes and Ericks could not withhold to orders and consent, it is possible to conclude that the act was not in the victims’ best interest. This would have been stopped when there was prospects of fatal accident. It was not lawful to withhold protective gadgets and precautions without which the victim died. Respondent defense The employee at working place by the requirements of the Acts should take reasonable care of their health and safety and that of other persons. However, the overheard conversation may have been a main cause of failure to assess the risks and comply with regulation even being fully aware of it. There is no confirmed co-operation and exchange with Chief Engineer by both employees. This would have complied with prescribed duties and requirements. The company may proof that their intention was right and it was generally concerned of workers welfare before reaching to a risky decision. It is a point leading to elimination of managers’ guilty mind. A criminal case requires both the existence of guilty act following after a guilty mind. These requirements are necessary for severe consequences to be instituted by criminal law. However, the two elements did not exist at the same time and they never occurred sequentially. The necessary precautions which would have been taken were just an omission in acting which may have been facilitated by lack of formal procedure and thus reduce the criminality involved (Ashworth and Zedner, p. 23). The set intervening act, the use of conveyor belt and radio transmitter sets the outcomes as unpredictable event. It is a logic mistake when carrying out an activity which shows lack of any motives for possibility of killing. The blame can be more to mere emphasis on loss as it would be for a normal circumstance in averting the loss. Without any wrongfulness of intent in the company act, it sufficiently shows their actions were negligence acts which are acceptable to defend a criminal case. The employer was forced by strictly liability duty and thus the damages that were visualized took the reasonable steps. The necessary steps ensured a balance and gave employees an opportunity to detest revealing no fault in the decision (Carson, p. 112). References Ashworth, Andrew, and Lucia Zedner. "Defending the criminal law: Reflections on the changing character of crime, procedure, and sanctions." Criminal Law and Philosophy 2.1 (2008): 21-51. Ashworth, Andrew. "Is the criminal law a lost cause?." Law Quarterly Review 116.2 (2000): 225-56. Beck, Matthias, and Charles Woolfson. "The regulation of health and safety in Britain: from old Labour to new Labour." Industrial relations journal 31.1 (2000): 35-49. Carson, W. G. "The conventionalization of early factory crime (1979)." Policy and Practice in Health and Safety 3.Supplement 1 (2005): 103-126. Dressler, Joshua, Frank R. Strong, and Michael E. Moritz. Understanding criminal law. Lexis Pub., 2001. Kloss, Diana. Occupational health law. Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Moore, Michael S. Placing blame: A general theory of the criminal law. Oxford University Press, 2010. Rosner, David. "When does a worker's death become murder?." American Journal of Public Health 90.4 (2000): 535. Simester, Andrew P., Gordon R. Sullivan, and A. P. Simester. Criminal law: theory and doctrine. Hart Publishing, 2000. Weissmann, Andrew. "Rethinking Criminal Corporate Liability." Indiana Law Journal 82.2 (2007). Read More