“Only for the Craic”: Who Is Liable When a Worker Throws a Block from Scaffolding?

A worker on a Dublin building site throws a block from scaffolding “for the craic”. It strikes another worker on the head, fracturing his skull. The contractor denies liability: nobody could reasonably have foreseen an employee doing something so reckless. The injured worker argues that the contractor is vicariously liable for its employee’s actions.

Neither proposition, by itself, resolves the dispute. Irish law distinguishes between responsibility for an employee’s wrongdoing and responsibility for the contractor’s own failures. The evidence may support either route, both, or neither. There is also a specific statutory duty concerning objects thrown from height that deserves close attention.

The starting point is vicarious liability. This can make an employer legally responsible for a wrong committed by an employee even though the employer did not authorise it and was not personally negligent. However, employment alone does not make the employer responsible for everything that person does. There must also be the necessary connection between the wrongdoing and the employment. 

In Hickey v McGowan [2017] IESC 6, the Irish Supreme Court confirmed the application of the “close connection” test. The case concerned sexual abuse by a teacher, rather than a construction accident, but its significance extends to the principles governing responsibility for intentional wrongdoing. The court examined the relationship between the conduct and the work entrusted to the wrongdoer. The abuse occurred in the course of the teacher’s classroom teaching.

That makes the contractor’s proposed defence incomplete. “I could not have predicted this” does not answer whether the employee’s act was sufficiently connected with his work. Equally, the injured worker cannot establish liability merely by showing that the incident happened during working hours, on the contractor’s scaffolding, using a block belonging to the contractor.

The practical distinction is between wrongdoing sufficiently connected with the employee’s assigned activities and a personal venture for which the job merely supplied the opportunity. A prohibition is relevant, but saying “we never authorised that” cannot, by itself, dispose of a claim involving deliberate misconduct. Otherwise, the close connection test would have little work to do.

Applied to the hypothetical, the worker’s actual task becomes crucial. Suppose he was clearing blocks from the scaffold and chose to throw one down, recklessly turning the task into a joke. There would be a stronger argument that the injury arose from an improper way of carrying out his work. Suppose instead that he stopped an unrelated task, picked up a block and launched it solely to frighten a colleague. The contractor would have a stronger argument that this was an independent prank.

Those are applications of the legal test, not predetermined outcomes. “For the craic” describes a claimed motive. It does not establish what the worker was doing immediately beforehand or how the throw related to his duties.

An instructive comparison is Chell v Tarmac Cement and Lime Ltd [2022] EWCA Civ 7. A worker suffered hearing injuries after a Tarmac employee struck explosive pellet targets with a hammer close to him as a practical joke. The English Court of Appeal upheld the rejection of claims based on both vicarious liability and the employer’s own negligence. The prank lacked the necessary connection with the employee’s work, and the evidence did not establish the alleged foreseeable risk requiring further precautions. 

Chell is an English decision. It is potentially persuasive in Ireland, not binding on an Irish court. It also does not create a blanket exemption for workplace horseplay. For this Dublin scenario, an argument distinguishing Chell would focus on whether handling or removing blocks was part of the employee’s assigned work. The fact that the object was a construction material is relevant context, but does not establish that connection on its own.

The contractor’s own conduct requires a separate examination. Even if the prank falls outside the scope of vicarious liability, the injured worker may allege that unsafe arrangements or inadequate supervision contributed to the injury. Conversely, a contractor that took reasonable precautions may still face vicarious liability if the employment connection is established. These are distinct questions.

Irish legislation expressly addresses dangerous behaviour at work. Section 8 of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005 requires employers, so far as reasonably practicable, to protect employees and to manage work so as to prevent improper behaviour likely to put them at risk. Sections 19 and 20 address risk assessment and safety statements. Section 13 also places responsibilities on employees, including a prohibition on behaviour likely to endanger themselves or others. Where the injured person works for another company, section 12 is relevant to the employer’s duties towards non-employees affected by its undertaking. Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005, as revised.

There is an even more specific provision. Regulation 116(c) of the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 2007 requires an employer to ensure that materials or objects are not thrown or tipped from height in circumstances liable to injure anyone. The same regulation addresses preventing falling objects and protecting people from being struck; regulation 117 deals with danger areas. General Application Regulations 2007, regulations 116 and 117.

This means that a legal investigation should examine compliance with those provisions as well as the common-law claims. The wording of regulation 116(c) is particularly significant: it expressly addresses throwing from height and contains no express “reasonably practicable” qualification in that paragraph. Any claim founded on breach of statutory duty still requires analysis of the applicable duty, the proper defendant, the breach and its causal relationship with the injury. The regulation should neither be overlooked nor treated as automatically deciding every issue in the damages claim.

For the negligence allegation, foreseeability has a more direct role. The question should not be framed solely as whether management could predict this particular worker throwing this particular block at this particular moment. The investigation should also consider whether the working arrangements exposed people below to an inadequately controlled risk from material above. That broader framing is an application to these facts, not a finding that the contractor was negligent.

Prior incidents could matter considerably. Had workers thrown debris before? Had supervisors witnessed dangerous messing? Were complaints ignored? Such evidence could support an allegation that management failed to respond to a known risk. Its absence would assist the defence to that allegation, although it would not itself defeat vicarious liability or resolve compliance with the regulations.

The most useful evidence would include:

• Witness accounts, CCTV and the worker’s explanation of why he threw the block.

• His assigned task, instructions and activities immediately before the incident.

• The identity of his employer and who controlled the relevant work.

• The arrangements for moving materials, clearing scaffolds and protecting people below.

• Risk assessments, site rules, training records and evidence of their enforcement.

• Earlier incidents, complaints or warnings about unsafe behaviour.

Causation also needs practical scrutiny. A missing precaution matters to the damages claim only if the necessary causal connection can be established. A toe-board that could prevent an accidental drop might not stop a deliberately thrown block. An appropriate exclusion zone or protected route might have prevented someone being struck. The block’s trajectory, the victim’s position and the proposed precaution therefore matter more than a generic list of safety shortcomings.

On the facts given, the contractor has not established a complete defence, and the injured worker has not established automatic vicarious liability. A wholly independent prank gives the contractor a meaningful argument on the employment connection. A reckless act embedded in the handling or removal of materials strengthens the injured worker’s case. Evidence of deficient site controls raises an additional route to liability, while the specific rule against throwing objects from height demands its own analysis.

Calling the incident “craic” does not determine legal responsibility. An Irish court would need to establish what work the employee was entrusted to do, how the throw related to that work, which safety duties applied and whether their breach contributed to the injury.