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O P I N I O N
Site safety
AEC firms must be diligent during design and construction to avoid becoming ‘responsible’ for worksite injuries or death.
A lthough site safety generally is the responsibility of construction contractors and subcontractors, when injuries or deaths occur at a worksite, design firms may also be the targets of related litigation and claims. Site safety is complicated and a function of various federal, state and local laws, regulations, codes, legal precedents, and your contract, any of which may affect how a lawsuit is resolved.
Brett Gough GUEST SPEAKER
Ames & Gough recently commissioned a white paper on site safety for design firms by noted engineering/construction authority Gary Brierley, Ph.D. (To request a free copy of the white paper, email me.) Here are some key exposures for design firms described in the paper and potential remedies: For design firms, protection against liability for site safety starts with contract clarity, which needs to be maintained throughout the execution of your work. This may be increasingly challenging given the growing popularity of design-build and integrated project delivery methods, which often call for “shared” responsibilities and collaborative efforts.
However, keep in mind, as a design firm, disclaiming site safety responsibility is good for your firm as well as for the owner and the project because it places the responsibility for accidents and related risk with the party presumably best suited to manage it – the general contractor or the design-build prime. In this regard, AEC firms need to be aware of key OSHA definitions that apply to site safety, both for the protection they may provide as well as to understand potential risk. For instance, OSHA defines the “host employer” (usually the project contractor) as responsible for construction site safety of its employees and all others. Additionally,
See BRETT GOUGH, page 12
THE ZWEIG LETTER October 8, 2018, ISSUE 1267
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