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Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (UK Legal System)
- 1. Principal aims of the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (UK Legal System) Written - 20th Jan 2016 One of the most important characteristic of a company is that it’s an artificial person. The operations and actions executed by a company are independent of its owner, founder or management. Therefore when a company is established the founding members have to register formally with the Companies House and follow the procedures designed. With conditions of liability and control, it becomes important for the identity of the company to be separate from that of the owners. With loopholesin the system, the separate identity criteria became a succour for the firms. There were incidences where customers and employees suffered a great lose or passed away due to botched actions of the company, but were not given justice due to absence of any stringent law that could identify the guilty. Usually in such cases, companies would escape after committing horrendous mistakes if the courts would not be able to gather enough evidence to lift the corporate veil and apply the doctrine of identification. According to the provisions of the old law, a corporation could be convicted only if an individual mind in the senior management could be identified and found responsible for the same. In R v. P&O Ferries, a ferry owned by the company had capsized due to negligence of the workers who forgot to shut the bow doors properly killing 193 passengers and crew. The defendants held arguments that manslaughter can happen only when one natural person kills/murders another and that there is no record in the English Law where a corporation/non-natural person was successfully convicted of manslaughter. Also, they were not able to identify and bring evidence for any controlling mind to be responsible, and so all the accused were acquitted. Though there were firms that were convicted and fined under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974, but they were not prosecuted for manslaughter. Some of the notable incidences were the Clapham Rail disaster of 1988, leading to 35 dead and 500 injured. A passenger train crashed in the rear of a halted train at the signal, while another train from the opposite direction crashed into their debris. British Rail were fined £250,000 as the signalling technician was neither informed that his actions were wrong nor supervised, leading to this accident. Another case was of Transco plc v HM Associate where the company was fined £15m after the death of 4 people due to a gas explosion. However, the court could not identify an individual directing mind in the company and had to drop charges of culpable homicide. Larger companies therefore frequently escaped conviction as fatal accidents are often the result of failures by a number of people over a period of time. The larger the company, the greater the number; and the less likely the chance of proving that a single person, representing the company’s controlling mind, had been grossly negligent.
- 2. This called for the introduction of new law and hold corporations guilty if they were found in gross breach of relevant duty of care. The corporate manslaughter and homicide act came to force on 6th April, 2008. According to the new law, a corporation can be convicted of corporate manslaughter if the activities are managed or organised resulting in gross negligence of the relevant duty of care leading to death of a victim. The focus now was on management failures rather than individual. Corporations with wide spread management structures can now be held accountable and fined unlimited if their actions results in death. The law aims at prosecuting large corporations if their activities result in gross breach of relevant duty of care or death of an individual. Courts do not require that the breach be confined to a particular level of management however a substantial part of the failure should be attributable to the senior management level. For example in the case of R v. JMN farms ltd. case, an employee of the company was cleaning a bin placed on an uneven surface, resulting him to fall on the floor followed by the bin falling on him causing his death. Following guidelines laid by the sentencing guidelines council, the courts investigated how far up the organisation the breach went. It was found that the directors of the company were responsible for the safety of the employees, and so the culpability went up till top management. Thus the firm was convicted of corporate manslaughter and fined. The introduction of this new law also encourages leadership and proper management by directors and senior management in both managing health and safety risks and ensuring compliance with health and safety laws. Violation of safety rules lead Cotswold Geotechnical Holding to be the first to be prosecuted for corporate manslaughter. One of the geologists fell in to 3.5 metre deep trench while on work and passed away due to traumatic asphyxiation when large amounts of soil covered him in the pit. In the eight people company, the director ignored the industry safety standards which ruled that work in pits deeper than 1.2 metres to be supported by extra equipment’s. This being the first case, the court demanded an exemplary damage of 385000, which was way beyond the company’s revenue. R v Lion Steel’s was fined £480,000 in 2012. While the company was charged with corporate manslaughter, three of the directors were charged with gross negligence manslaughter. However, once the company pleaded guilty to the crime, charges against the directors were dropped. The incidence involved the death of an employee after he fell through a fibreglass rooflight 13 metres to the factory floor while carrying out roof repairs. The employee was send unsupervised, untrained and with no safety equipment on.
- 3. It is important to note that a company can be convicted when an incident happens in relation to the work assigned or at the work place due to negligence. The next cases discussed throw light on results of independent employee actions where companies were not held responsible. PS & JE Ward Limited was charged with corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter due to the death of their employee being electrocuted while working on-site. However, as the case progressed, courts realised that the victim had acted independent of the company’s instruction while lead to his death. The charge of the corporate manslaughter were dropped, however under the Health and safety at work act, the firm was fined. A similar case was of MNS Mining Limited when 4 workers in a coal mine died as water filled in while they were at work. The company and manager were acquitted of corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter after an expert geologist confirmed that the water could have gathered following the explosion carried out by the workers. The case of Huntly Mount Engineering, highlights that company staff and recruiters should be fully aware of the jobs and employee capability before assigning work. A young apprentice died after his loosely fitting overalls were pulled into a steel cutting machine while at work. The young employee was left untrained and unsupervised while safety guards had been removed from machinery. The company was charged with corporate manslaughter and fined 150,000; the director and supervisor were jailed for 8 months and 4 months respectively after admitting to neglect health and safety laws. The intermediary firm who had helped the victim secure this government approved apprenticeship, were fined 75,000 for putting the victim in dangerous work environment. This law has successfully charged companies with corporate manslaughter identifying the controlling head up to the parent company as well. In the case of CAV Cambridge Ltd, one of the company employee passed away when a bunch of metal stringers feel off the warehouse shelf and collapsed onto his chest while he was walking in the aisle. The parent company, CAV Aerospace Limited was accused of collective failings in management and control of CAV Cambridge Ltd. Prior to the fatal accident, the parent company had received repeated warnings about the impending danger. It was finally charged with corporate manslaughter and fined 600,000. Some of the recent cases that are gaining public interest in this field include, the NHS and Lufthansa airlines tragedy. The National Health Services and two anaesthetist appointed under NHS trust hospital are accused of corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter respectively. The incident dates back to 2012 when a patient passed away after experiencing complication after childbirth. According to the prosecutor, the patient was not attended to with appropriate help by the anaesthetist when her condition worsened. They claim that the doctors were not trained and did not meet the qualifications of their profession, resulting in this unavoidable accident. Also, they hold NHS responsible for employing under-qualified staff and as a result risking the lives of patients. This shows how both the actions function simultaneously to convict the accused individual as well as a corporate body.
- 4. Lufthansa Airlines, a German carrier may face charges of corporate manslaughter for allowing suicidal pilot to fly. The pilot who had suffered and reported depression prior to this incident was deemed fit to co-pilot a flight. Investigators believe the flight was deliberately crashed in the French Alps after the suicidal co-pilot took charge of the plane killing 150 passengers on board. After viewing the pilots past medical history, the airline can possibly be held responsible to allowing him to fly. This case has also raised very serious questions about how the fitness of commercial airline pilots should be assessed in future. Though this act aims to do well and bring justice, prior approval of the Directors of Public Prosecutions before a case can be taken to court threatens to entangle prosecutions under this act in long political processes.