Health and safety applies when rugby field is a workplace
An ‘‘officer’’ of a PCBU is anyone who exercises significant influence over the management of the business. Officers must exercise due diligence to ensure the PCBU complies with the act. An officer will generally be someone like a chief executive, such as Tew.
The rugby players themselves would also be under obligations to take reasonable care for their own health and safety and take reasonable care that their actions do not harm others.
In theory at least, the NZRU, the chief executive, and the individual player could face prosecution under the act if, for example, a tackle went wrong and caused harm and the parties had not taken the steps required to prevent the risk of harm.
In the famous 1993 English House of Lords case, R v Brown, Lord Mustill considered why professional boxing is immune from criminal prosecution. He also contemplated how crucial deliberate bodily contact is to the game of rugby and that in any other context a rugby tackle would be painful battery or even grievous bodily harm.
Although the consent of the players to engage in a physical sport is relevant, the criminal law allows individuals to consent only to a certain level of harm being inflicted upon them. Once this threshold is passed the act becomes criminal despite the consent.
Lord Mustill explained that rugby tackles and boxing punches are not criminal because such sports are ‘special situations’ that stand outside the ordinary criminal law because society chooses to tolerate it.
The World Rugby Council is certainly taking steps to protect players from neck and head injuries by continuing to develop and tighten the rules of the game.
Tackles like Williams’ are prohibited in order to prevent injuries and referees are expected to issue red cards for infringements such as the one in question.
What about rugby matches involving local teams where the players are not paid, such as Wellington’s Jubilee Cup competition and junior rugby?
Just over a week ago there was a club rugby game that went very wrong. In the final minutes of the Waikato club rugby championship match between Southern United Football Club and Taupiri, Braden Coates suffered a serious spinal injury when two of his vertebrae broke during a tackle and maul.
Purely volunteer organisations, where volunteers work together for a community purpose and there are no employees, are not strictly covered by the Health and Safety at Work Act. Volunteer associations are not PCBUS and therefore are excluded from the obligations under the act.
However, when they employ someone the act will apply. The act provides that volunteers are not liable for some of the offence provisions of the act. Despite this it is advisable that volunteers still comply with the act to avoid other liability and to prevent injury or death. It may also be that liability will lie elsewhere.
An example of this is seen in the 2005 Court of Appeal case involving ‘Le Race’ organiser Astrid Andersen. In 2001 Andersen faced charges of criminal nuisance under section 145 of the Crimes Act following the death of a cyclist.
Vanessa Caldwell was
Although we don’t often think about it, Westpac Stadium is a workplace and the All Blacks are a finely tuned, high-performing business.
competing in the annual cycling event from Christchurch to Akaroa when she was struck and killed by an oncoming car as she approached a blind corner on the wrong side of Summit Rd, Christchurch.
Andersen was initially convicted and fined $10,000. The Court of Appeal held that the offence needed recklessness for a conviction. This had not been proven and she was accordingly acquitted.