Contractors liability

The New Roads and Street Works Act 1991 stipulates circumstances under which certain excavation contractors, defined as utilities and other undertakers, must give notice of their planned works. Emergency, urgent and some minor works are excluded from this duty. It also requires that contractors keep up-to-date records of the location of their apparatus and make them available, free of charge, for inspection at all reasonable hours. The exemptions applicable to the Act do not affect contractor liability under the HSW Act. 

Over time, federal regulatory poHcy on the issue of independent contractor liability ran from one extreme to the other under the 1969 Coal Act at one point, the Interior Board of Mine Operations Appeals (Affinity Mining Co. 1973) held that the key to Hability as an operator was determined by the locus of responsibihty for the health and safety of the miners in question, and that while more than one person may fall technically within the definition of operator, only the one responsible for the violations and the safety of employees can be the person served with notices and orders and against whom civil penalties may be assessed. At the other end of the spectrum, after a district court ruling that independent construction contractors were not within the definition of operator and could not be held liable for violations, the Secretary of the Interior (before that district court judgment was reversed in the D.C. Circuit) instructed all federal mine safety inspectors to issue citations for independent contractor violations only to the operator who hired the contractor (Association of Bituminous Contractors 1975). 

Seller is an independent contractor, with all the attendant rights and liabilities, and not an agent or employee of [insert company name]. Any provision in this Agreement, or any action by [insert company name], which may appear to give [insert company name] the right to direct or control Seller in providing Prodnct means Seller will follow the desires of [insert company name] in resnlts only. 

The process of engaging the required capabilities must be a formal process so that both the organization in need and the contractor/sub-contractor are protected in the event of a failure to perform, an accident, or a difference of opinion as to terms or performance. Adherence to the provisions of this procedure will help attain good contracting practices and minimize the potential liabilities to the host organization in contractual relationships. 

The life of the product- access to the records will probably not be needed for some considerable time, possibly long after the contract has closed. On defense contracts the contractor has to keep records for up to 20 years and for product liability purposes, in the worst case situation (taking account of appeals), you could be asked to produce records up to 17 years after you made the product. 

Drilling contractors should be advised prior to the operations on what is trying to be accomplished environmentally on location. Contractors know that the standard practices of throwing dope buckets and everything else into the reserve pit is no longer acceptable, but an occasional drilling crew may not take the directives serious. Because of this, drilling contracts should line item the liabilities associated with imprudent practices. 

From the date of the Practical Completion Certificate, the contractor is no longer liable for liquidated damages, and the defects liability begins to run. Latent defects which appear for the next six or twelve months, depending upon the agreed period, have to be made good by the contractor, free of charge to the client. 

Tanks should be removed only by contractors familiar with pertinent government regulations and knowledgeable about the safeguards necessary to prevent environmental harm so as to limit potential liability to the owner of the storage system. 

You should be aware that if you are involved in two or more situations, you could be an employee in one and an independent contractor in another. As an employee, both social security tax and income tax are withheld from your salary. As an independent contractor, you must estimate your income tax and social security tax liability and pay it in advance quarterly installments. Therefore, until the end of the year the amount withheld on salary will generally exceed the amount paid in by the independent contractor, and based solely on the value of the use of money, an independent contractor theoretically saves the interest on this difference. Also, for 1976 the amount of social security withheld from your salary is 5.85% of the first 15,300, but the amount of social security tax an independent contractor must pay is 7.9% of the first 15,300 of self-employment income. This difference in percentages can result in a maximum of 313 savings for the employee over the independent contractor. 

This observation is however not restricted to supposedly conservative factory owners, who at best fear liability problems or financial risks. It applies to workers and technicians alike, to purchasing department and management, to associations and scientific branch institutes as well as to sub-contractors of machinery, components and anxiliary eqnipment, in which the chemicals are nsed. This conservative stance applies not only with regard to enviromnent and health-related iimovation, bnt also to innovation in general and it is amplified (and also repeatedly npset) by the stress of globalisation and social uncertainty. 

This report was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. Neither the United States nor the United States Department of Energy, nor any of their employees, nor any of their contractors, subcontractors, or their employees, makes any warranty, express or implied, or assumes any legal liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product or process disclosed, or represents that its use would not infringe privately-owned rights. ... 

Abandoned or inactive sites in the USA are regulated through the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) or the Superfund, first signed in 1980 and reauthorized in 1986 in the Superfund Amendment and Reauthorization Act (SARA). Superfund Contract Laboratory Program (CLP) is a national network of EPA representatives, EPA contractors, and commercial environmental laboratories that support EPA s Superfund projects under... 

UNDER THE AGENCY CONTRACT, THE OWNER ASSUMES THE RESPONSIBILITY AND LIABILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF THE CONTRACTOR. IT SHOULD BE AVOIDED. 

The contractor is legally bound to perform the work according to the contract. It has also assumed the professional responsibility and will be liable for failures stemming from the mechanical design and/or execution provided under the contract. It has a contractual right to take the necessary steps and incur reasonable expenses to protect its liability. 

These provisions provide a tremendous impetus to hazardous waste generators to dispose of their waste on site under carefiilly controlled conditions. This concept of liability also burdens the generator with the threat of future costs as a result of someone else s improper actions. These values follow directly from our system of government, which was created to assure that individual citizens do not suffer loss of property and freedoms (health) by the actions of others. The need for a careful choice of a contractor to carry out waste management and disposal responsibilities is also highlighted by these provisions. 

It is not uncommon for contractors to be held liable for any damage as a result of their activities. Where contracts are dealing with hazardous substances their clients almost certainly require them to assume responsibility for damage caused whilst handling or dealing with the hazardous materials. How can contractors accept such liability with a public liability policy that contains pollution exclusion ... 

The GC assumes the entrepreneurial risk of completing the work in accordance with the plans and specifications for the lump sum amount agreed to in the contract. The owner s liability in theory is limited because he has a firm price to do the work. The key thing to remember here is that the contractor has given a lump sum price to perform the scope of work that is detailed in the bid documents he has not given a lump sum price to do whatever it takes. ... 

If a contractor is engaged to handle waste in the plant, the handling equipment may be owned by the contractor, who may work on a fixed-fee basis either by tonnage or hours expended. While this approach may reduce equipment investment, the contractor should indemnify against liabilities for contractor personnel and ensure that the company is compensated for damage to equipment or interruptions to production caused by the contractor. 

The Administrator shall conduct a study on the availability of liability insurance and other forms of assurance against financial loss which are available to local educational agencies and asbestos contractors with respect to actions required under this subchapter. Such study shall examine the following ... 

A) The extent to which liability insurance and other forms of assurance against financial loss are available to local educational agencies and asbestos contractors. 

On the basis of the interim report or the final report of the study required by subsection (a) of this section, a State may enact or amend State law to establish or modify a standard of liability for local educational agencies or asbestos contractors with respect to actions required under this subchapter. 

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission (OSHRC) initially addressed the employer-employee relationship shortly after the OSH Act was enacted in the case titled Gilles v. Cotting, Inc. In this case, two employees of the primary contractor were killed in an accident created by and resulting from the actions of a subcontractor. OSHA issued one citation to the primary contractor and one citation to the subcontractor. OSHA subsequently vacated the citation to the primary contractor, finding the citation was improper and would impose liability outside the employment relationship. Over the years, the OSHRC, as well as the various federal Circuit Courts of Appeal, has addressed this issue primarily in the construction area, with focus on creation of the hazard and control of the hazard. In recent decisions and with the inception of the multiemployer woiksite rule, the scope of the duty to safeguard employees at the worksite has been substantially expanded."... 

This aspect is also influenced by the state ref. Petroleum Act Sect. 10-9 on liability for independent contractors, and Petroleum Act Ch. 7 on liability for pollution damage. 

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