Employer liability personal injury at roller skating workshop

Supreme Court 17 April 2009

The victim is a 47-year-old employee working in the financial administration department of the company M/V Communications. On Friday afternoon, 1 February 2002, M/VC organises a relaxation activity for its employees after working hours: a workshop dancing on roller skates. For this workshop, she hires two professional rollerskaters and the rollerskates. The rollerskating lesson takes place in M/VC's office hall. The floor of that hall is marble. The employee puts on the rollerskates in the adjoining office space - which has benches and carpeting. At that time, some employees are already roller skating but the roller skating class has not yet started. After the employee rides the roller skates several metres into the marble hall, she falls, breaking her left wrist. The fracture heals, but a post-traumatic dystrophy develops and the employee becomes unfit for work. She files a claim against M/VC for this loss of her working capacity of €223,515.

The subdistrict court dismissed the claim. On appeal, the court of appeal also rejects the claim, insofar as it is based on employers' liability (Section 7:658 of the Civil Code): the accident did not occur in the performance of the work because there was no sufficiently close connection between the performance of the work and the festivity. The court of appeal does find the claim admissible on the basis of good employment practice (Section 7:611 of the Dutch Civil Code), to which it considers that the workshop did occur in the performance of work related was. After all, it was a staff activity held in the hall of M/VC's office, M/VC had (co-)organised the activity and had (hired) professional roller skaters and the roller skates. Because of this connection between activity and employment contract, M/VC had a duty of care and prevention based on good employment practices with regard to that activity. The court further held that M/VC had not done enough to protect its employees from the danger of falling during the workshop. Roller skating on a marble floor (which is slippery and hard) - without sufficient handholds - is a risky activity, especially if no protective equipment, such as knee and wrist guards, was issued beforehand and no roller skating instruction was given. On the contrary, the risk of falling is considerable, especially for middle-aged people who have not been roller skating in years, like the employee. And the court rules that M/VC failed in its duty of prevention by not taking out liability insurance for the damage suffered as a result of the fall. The court therefore finds M/VC liable for the personal injury, and the Supreme Court confirms this liability in cassation.