Fire Safety and Management - Incidences and Risks of Fire Disasters - Case Study Example

Law and Management Author’s Name: Instructor’s Name: Course Details: Institutional Affiliation: Date of Submission: Law and Management Introduction Fire safety and management is crucial not only to the firefighting agencies but to all areas that are susceptible to fire outbreaks. Although, a number of guidelines may have been adopted for fire safety both in industries and in places of residence, still there is need for much more precaution. Some of these guidelines are basic; others are general while quite a number are specific to certain areas. Generally, the parameters should follow the universally accepted codes of conduct in order to reduce incidences and risks of fire disasters.1 Without a doubt, the factory fire incident presented in this case was one that resulted from negligence on the part of top management. It is also clear that proper fire safety management was never a priority in the factory’s undertakings in the first place. From the general manager, fire and rescue service manager, the fire service men, to the people working in the factory, it seems as if good cooperation was never instilled in the system to avoid such a huge loss witnessed in the fire outbreak. Judging from the conduct of the people, who bear the most responsibility to raise awareness through training programs geared towards total fire safety methods and procedures, the loss, was largely preventable. The Fire accidents did not just happen. It must have been ignited by some cause. Whatever might have been the reason for the fire, carelessness, negligence, or even ignorance played a major role in the fire outbreak. The first fire alert was a pointer that all was not well concerning the running systems inside the working mechanics of the factory and the safety measures put in place to fight a fire outbreak, should one arise. A serious careful assessment would have avoided the possibility of faster spread of fire as witnessed. Surely, a factory fire incident can emanate from different quotas, including leaking gas pipes, inflammable substances, and improper placement of used papers among many more issue surrounding this subject. Fire prevention measures signify concerted efforts for eliminating the outbreak of fires by adopting all necessary precautionary safety measures. In fact, fire prevention should be considered more important than even the fire fighting itself. The scope of fire prevention in a factory should not be limited to certain designated areas only but should extend to all the establishments including offices, and may be this is where the managers blundered- doing a shoddy assessment leaving some areas untouched (Just may be). Fire incidences have always been serious hazards with devastating consequences. Fires destroy the livelihoods of people and property acquired through persistent efforts and sacrifices in moments of carelessness causing loss of lives, injuries, and heavy damages. A loss due to fire cannot be replaced.2 Three legal issues emerge from the fire case presented to us: First, the managers evidently had a legal mandate to safeguard the property of the factory. They owed the factory the service to protect its progress prospects. Secondly, it is evident that some failures to provide proper standard measures to arrest the fire out break one hour prior to the incident were not adhered to. Even after getting first hand information that such incidences can occur without warning, enough care was not taken to put structures in place to avert the looming crisis. Thirdly, it is highly probable that the actions of the managers were the cause of the damage caused. Legal issues around the attendance at the fire The objective of fire precautionary measures is to ensure that fires do not occur and that when they do, they should be responded to as soon as they are detected, effectively contained and possibly quickly extinguished. This definitely means that fire safety measures will be determined by physical factors, which not only include building designs and construction, equipment and furnishings, but also the installation and proper maintenance of detection alarm gargets and fire fighting equipments. Accompanying the physical factors should be management policies for effective handling of emergencies guided by a properly trained staff knowledgeable of issues involving fire signals. As the officer in charge of fire rescued the factory, it would have been rather unusual for the manager to fail to respond to a duty that fell within his legal mandate. His response to the first fire call showed that he was alert and clearly in charge. In fact, the weight of the liability would have fallen heavily on the manager without questions in the absence of his attendance. Equally important was his presence in the factory an hour into the second call, trying to contain the fire. His responsibility with regard to monitoring the situation was beyond reproach, and so blame has no space in between the manager’s conduct either in the initial alarm response or in the process of containing the incident. Noteworthy, numerous accidents can occur even within seconds, and the factory incidents in relation to the first fire signal and manager’s response to the fire, perhaps with his team, was not an exceptional case. Liability in emergency Services It is useful to treat the dismissal case of the fire and rescue service manager with extreme care not to prejudice his side of the story. First and foremost, as indeed emphasized by courts of law, there are significant issues of public policy involved that cannot just be brushed away. Secondly, the question of liability in this case may well involve important questions regarding the applicability of the Human Rights Act. Thirdly, there are important implications concerning the law relating to dismissal of the manager mention above. The position of the company in this context is particularly noteworthy. The company denied the manager, whom I will refer as the plaintiff herein henceforth, a chance of fair hearing which may result in further litigation as well as compensation costs to the already fallen company. In as much as the plaintiff owed the factory a special duty of care to protect the factory’s property, over and above the unilateral decision to dismiss the plaintiff over his conduct prior to the incidence, it is clear from the jurisprudence point of view that this decision was largely the result of a one sided consideration. The fire breakout was preventable, but it could have been well beyond the plaintiff’s ability to manage the situation given the state of affairs in the factory. As stated in the case presented to us, there was an indication that the hazardous incident was just about to explode. The signal was well responded to in time, and a search was carried out. However, the cause for alarm could not immediately be determined due factors that are beyond my imagination to exactly figure out. In their action, the defendant’s alleged negligence of duty on the part of the plaintiff in failing to arrest the fire before the tragic incident could occur may not be sustainable under certain circumstances. Unless the law stipulates in clear terms that the actions taken by the factory were beyond reproach and thus deserves some form of immunity, negligent as the managers were, singling out the fire and rescue service manage for dismissal for actions that were supposed to be guided by industrial policy cutting across to all employees, may not be sustainable. In the matter of investigating the cause for alarm prior the fire outbreak, specialized devises to test electrical defaults or gas leakages may not have been available, and so eye testing may not have been enough to unearth the problem at hand then.3 Equivocally, the fire might have been started by intentional human actions. As the saying goes “The mind is in its own place and in itself can either design a heaven of Hell, or a hell of Heaven,” said john Milton. The claim of negligence can thus be struck out overruling the company earlier decision to fire the plaintiff. We might pause to remark that while the identity of the possible causes of the fire might have been hypothesized; neither the plaintiff nor the top management could have managed to extract information from the perpetrators’ mind.4 Therefore, based on this fact alone, a court might absolve the plaintiff from taking responsibility of a duty to prevent the incident. In such circumstances of absolute secrecy, the acknowledged degree of foreseeability of an impending crime is nearly impossible. There is also the possibility of staff negligence concerning placements and storage of inflammable substances right after minor changes in the first emergency call. Such requires cool places not at risk of higher temperatures. The manager in charge might have taken the staff through rigorous awareness training on such substances, but despite his efforts, the lapses could not just stop streaming in. Again, he will not be tightened into taking responsibility in case this might have been the root cause of the subject matter. The decision to fire the manager in charge of fire services was therefore a complicated one that not only calls for keen interrogation of events that might have transpired before the damage was done, but also the personal vendetta that might have existed between the top management officers. Well, the back must stop somewhere, yet the hammer can also fall on the wrong person, opening a floodgate to another battlefront leading to more loss to the factory. In his book “Introduction to Law” (Pg.263-273), Phil Harris introduces the reader to three appeals in 1997 relating to the fire services lodged and heard together by the Court of Appeal. In first case involving John Munroe (Acrylics) Ltd verses London Fire and Civil Defense Authority, despite of the fire fighters response to an emergency call in time doing whatever they could to put off the fire, they mistakenly left the scene of fire believing that they had successfully extinguished the fire. Unfortunately, the fire reignited behind their back causing further damage. In another court tussle involving the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (in Great Britain) verses the Yorkshire Fire and Civil Defense Authority, the claimant’s chapel was destroyed by fire that apparently could not be put off by the fire fighters owing to a lack of adequate water supply. The plaintiffs alleged that the damages were because of negligence on the part of the defendants, and that they were in breach of the statutory duty spelled under the Fire Services Act 1947, which necessitates fire authorities to guarantee adequate safety by ensuring adequate supply of water for fire-fighting purposes. In the two cases, the Court of Appeal ruled that the defendants owed no duty of care to the claimants’ alleged breach of responsibility.5 Back to the factory fire case, despite foreseeability of harm and owing to the foregoing clarification, the assertion that actions of the fire rescue manager prior to the incident caused the damages may be far-fetched, unconvincing, and insufficient to hold any ground. Accordingly, the mere fact that there was an alarm call does not automatically validate such allegation, and that the statutory context under which the fire services Act operate, the actions does not amount to negligence in common-law. Furthermore, there is no guarantee that attendance at a fire outbreak would always be successful even with all, the equipments available. However, in the third case that involved Capital and Counties plc verses the Hampshire County Council, the court held that the fire fighters did owe a duty of care to the claimant based on facts of the case. The fire brigade having arrived at the scene of fire at the claimants’ premises, an order from one of the fire officers led to the water sprinkler system in the building being turned off. As a result, the fire spread causing further damage. 6Although the fire brigade did not cause the initial outbreak of fire in this case, a positive action in turning off the sprinklers worsened the situation. It was well in order for the court to establish that a duty did indeed exist. The case relating to the fire rescue manager in the factory bears resemblance to this case in many aspects, but one issue stand out to absolves the manager from further blame-inexistence of adequate water supply. The manager performed his duties as any other manager could do, and so any gross misconduct leveled against him leading to a blanket dismissal was an act of violation of his Human rights. Poor water Supply There are information that enough water might have existed, but due poor architectural structuring of the factory buildings, the rescuers could not gain access to enough water reservoir situated in one part of the factory to extinguish the fire. The establishment of fire fighting requirements is crucial to fire service operations as it underlines the selection and distribution mechanics that not only involves accessibility of premises but also the resources devoted to such emergency services to allow for exploration of alternatives. The provision of fire-fighting water, especially in a factory, is intimately linked to the tactics employed in the initial planning when putting up the buildings to cater for emergencies. A fire engineering perspective was required given the unpredictability of fires within premises, to draw up a parallel fire-fighting water supply mechanism commensurate to the would-be expected danger. The picture presented to us reveals that the management did not anticipate such a big fire outbreak in their fire development and suppression systems, an omission that was critical to the safety measures not only to life of employees but also to the property in the premises. As the manager in charge of fire rescues, there are reasons to believe that certain recommendation had been made to avoid dependence from a single source. Just to mention, a factory like the one involved in this case was better off with multiple sources including but not limited to outsourced fire brigade services, water pipe connections in all areas in the premises, water tanks to aid in situations of emergencies, a more sophisticated filtering or screening devices placed strategically to detect any anomaly among other measures. If such recommendations had been forwarded, but no action came forth, then the entire management should have taken responsibility for the incident. I suppose that like other employees, the manager in charge of fire rescues came in as a manager after all the structures had been put in place. The ACAS guidelines on discipline In an effort to transform the old code of conduct, ACAS made recommendations that are important to both employers and employees with regard to disciplinary actions. In addition to the Code, ACAS produced a disciplinary guidance booklet in order to steer employers and employees towards the most rational course of action in the circumstances of a dispute. Nevertheless, the Employment Tribunal does not refer to ACAS guidance booklet; it is simply a tool for employers and employees to refer to when seeking a course if action. Failure to adhere to the ACAS guidelines by both the employer and employee does not attract any penalty. However, should a claim be handled by the Employment Tribunal, as it considers the code, if there is a general feeling that the employer or employee failed to comply with certain fundamental guidelines. A compensation can be either reduce or increase by upto 25 percent. The factory should have considered ACAS disciplinary process provided below in dealing with the rescue manager: 1. Ascertain whether there was indeed a disciplinary concern against the individual. Initial investigatory meeting was supposedly not conducted to gather evidence that would have amounted to gross misconduct. The decision to dismiss the manager was taken without solid facts, a pointer to the fact that that some partisan interests might have influenced the dismissal. ACAS disciplinary process recommends impartial investigations before any action is taken. 2. A letter notification detailing allegations for dismissal in line with outcomes of prior meetings was to be given to manager. Time, place of meetings and collated evidence for dismissal should be attached. 3. The employer should have allowed the manager enough time to read through the evidences to prepare his case/defense. 4. A meeting giving opportunity to be heard was necessary. Any witnesses to be cross-examined should be known to the manager and company management before the meeting. 5. Once the meeting is over, the employer/ management must go away and make ratinal decisions based on the evidence presented at the meeting. The decision of the management/employer must be confirmed and conveyed to the manager in writing. This notification must give room to the right to appeal. 6. Should there be any appeal hearing, people who conducted the disciplinary meeting should never reappear (to maintain impartiality). Conclusion The implication of this case may have far-reaching consequences going by the statistics of court rulings involving negligence especially in emergency services. It is highly probable that the fire rescue manager will win should he consider a lawsuit against the factory. Certain rulings of the European Court of Human Rights overturning decisions of lower courts have been witnessesd in the past, and it remains to be seen how such rulings together with the Human Rights Act 1998, shall impact in future cases dealing with allegations of negligence. The duty imposed by the Human Rights Act 1998 cuts across, and so it is incumbent to all, including companies, to act in a way compatible with the Convention stipulated rights. It is difficult to predict the interpretation of courts regarding such matters, but it will certainly be interesting to see how this provision will be incorporated. Bibliography Communities and Local Government (CLG). Fire safety – Risk assessment – Factories and warehouses. The Stationery Office, London, 2006. David G. Owen, Duty Rules, 54 VAND. L. REV. 767, 767-79. (2001). Harris P. An introduction to Law (7th ed.). Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2007. Michael D. G. The Intersection of Factual Causation and Damages, 55 DEPAUL L. REV. 671 (2006). Richard W. Wright, The Grounds and Extent of Legal Responsibility, 40 SAN DIEGO L. REV. 1425, 1434 & n.25 (2003). Read More