Originally Posted by
warrenpenalver
why is the onus on proving they arent negligent when in the UK every criminal legal precedence is set on the presumption of innocence??? surely they have to prove they were negligent??
And if these arent criminal cases then how are these compo judgements in any way legally enforcable??
I dont see why there needs to be a different burden of proof compared to criminal cases. After all if people are going to prison for corporate manslaughter then surely they are entitled to the same due process and protection as anyone else accused of a crime?
your right. the whole thing is fucking ridiculous.
Forget insurance. This is NOT an insurance issue. If you crash you have insurance for the financial element but this is about a criminal trial for (effectively) negligence on the part of the employer allowing unsafe working conditions.
If an employer sends you out in your car on his business and you crash and kill someone they will be investigated. It already happens following a fatality while driving at work and, because English law is largely based on precedent, the authorities are waiting for just the right case to take to trial.
During the investigation, when it becomes clear that they haven't taken reasonable steps to ensure that you are quailfied to drive the vehicle (say you only hold a licence for an automatic but go out in a manual car), or that the vehicle proved to be defective but they hadn't taken reasonable steps to check maintenance was properly carried out, they then go to court where the burden of proof is for them to show that they HAD taken steps.
And if you're the one who dies, the employer can't count on your grieving widow to provide any evidence that the work HAD been done, is she? That could harm HER payout and the satisfaction of seeing the bg boss go to the big house.