What If?

Jeremy Vıne: whose fault is it anyway? Never mind the Olympics, the Brits' national sport should be 'avoiding blame’ - A man nearly died in my garden last week. I wasn’t there at the time, but when I heard what happened it wasn’t just images of ambulances that came to mind; I imagined what the police would have said to me if things had turned out differently…  “So this gentleman – the deceased – did you know him?”  “No. Well, yes. Sort of.” “Were you aware he was planning to erect a ladder on your kitchen roof and climb up to the third floor? Your daughter’s bedroom?”  “No.” “And yet you had paid him to clean that window. So how on earth, may I ask, did you think he was doing it?” And at that point I would have raised my hands in surrender and said: “Fair cop. My window cleaner has died and it’s all my fault.” Thank heavens, he did not die.

But the story was frightening enough. The man’s ladder had been resting on the bitumen surface of the kitchen roof. Heat had loosened the tar and the foot of the ladder suddenly slid from under him. A camera on the back of our house shows the ladder fall first, rapidly followed by the man, who travels at speed through the air, upside-down. Luckily his left leg gets caught around a rung of the ladder, which stops his head striking the concrete. He dangles like a broken puppet. After a while he gets to his feet. So there were no police, no ambulances. But I turned it over in my head. If the poor man had died, I just know I would have been responsible. I would have been responsible because it was my window, my house and my melting roof.

The list of reasons goes on. I once asked a lawyer friend what would happen if, theoretically, I blew up a paper bag and popped it behind the head of a young lady who, unbeknownst to me, had a heart condition and dropped dead. (Naturally, I would never do such a thing.) Unforeseen tragedy? “No, manslaughter,” he told me. The fact that she had a heart condition could not be used in mitigation. “You’re just as much to blame for killing a frail person as a healthy one,” he said. Clearly I would have had no chance with the window cleaner.

But where do you draw the line? A report earlier this year revealed that a nurse who slipped on a piece of potato had claimed nearly £4,000 in compensation from her hospital trust for failing to provide a safe working environment. Another worker had claimed nearly £3,000 for injuring their shoulder while throwing litter into a bin. And what about the extraordinary chain of events that took place in Augusta, Maine, a few years ago?

A woman drove her husband to the office. In addition to a goodbye kiss, she thought she’d brighten his day by flashing her breasts. Unfortunately, a passing taxi driver, Jim Vegas, glanced over. He saw the breasts and lost control at the wheel. The cab hit the Johnson Medical Building. On the first floor a dental technician was cleaning a patient’s teeth. The impact jolted her hand, she cut the patient’s gum and, in shock, he clamped his jaw shut and severed two of her fingers. Now who was responsible for that? The woman who flashed? The taxi driver?

After the 2010 election people congratulated me for “bringing down Gordon Brown” after I interviewed him about the “bigoted” pensioner Gillian Duffy on my radio show. But I don’t take any responsibility for his downfall because it was just chance that the former PM happened to insult Ms Duffy on the same day he was due to see me. The interview was simply the culmination of a series of events. The trouble is, no one likes to use the word “accident” now. As a result the avoidance of blame is a national sport. When I caught my five year-old eating chocolate from a cake I was baking after I had told her to stop, she came out with the classic line: “I’m sorry, dad, but it fell on me.”

Which is why I’m certain that, if my window cleaner had died, the police would have called, and even though I’d never met him or told him where to put his ladder, it would have been all my fault.

Guide to Home Insurance (UK) Public liability cover. Remember that you are liable for accidents to individuals working at your property and damage caused to other people’s property. For instance, if your window cleaner falls off his ladder and dies, you will need ‘public liability’ cover to cover you if you are sued. Most buildings insurance policies automatically incorporate public liability cover, but always check.

Contractor Liability (US): Are You Covered for Mishaps on Your Property? What happens if, despite all precautions, there’s an accident involving your contractor that leads to a liability issue? Who’s responsible—and who pays? Step 1: Check the personal liability section of your home owners policy. What’s typically covered: Negligence—a contractor slips on an ice walkway. Check your policy and state rules for specifics, notes Chicago-based attorney Steven J. Thayer. What’s not: Major injuries—limits are usually fairly low. Don’t trust your home owners or umbrella policies to protect you if a builder’s employee sustains major injuries. 
Also, accidents due to your gross negligence. For example, if you knew your roof was damaged and unlikely to handle the weight of a ladder and didn’t tell the contractor, a lawyer could argue that was gross negligence. Policies vary widely. Look in the personal liability section of your home owners policy for details, says Jack Smith, a spokesperson for the trade group Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of New York. The bottom line? Instead of worrying over your insurance, make sure your contractor has his own.

Not all states require this for small contractors, so ask your contractor to provide you with a policy certificate. Accidents involving the contractor’s own equipment, such as falling off a ladder. (Contractors using your ladder could claim it was your faulty equipment, not their clumsiness, leading to an insurance battle and a lawsuit. Don’t provide your contractor with anything more dangerous than a pencil.)