Attorney-at-Law Gretta Oltjer-Timberg’s article “Occupational Safety on Paper, Liability in Practice” (published in the finance and law journal RUP) examines the question of to whom and on what grounds liability can be attributed for violations of occupational safety requirements, in light of a court case (No. 1-25-2925) involving a fatal workplace accident at a construction site. Although occupational accident statistics in the construction sector may suggest an improving situation, supervision results continue to show widespread and systemic deficiencies.
The core message of the article is that occupational safety requirements are met only when the employee genuinely understands the risks associated with the work, not simply when a document has been signed. The employer must ensure substantive training and instruction in a language understandable to the employee. A formal signature on paper does not replace actual skills nor does it release the employer from the obligation of internal control and supervision.
At the same time, the Tallinn Circuit Court clarified that an employer’s failure to provide training does not relieve an employee of personal liability. If an employee knows the correct work procedure based on prior learning or experience, but consciously decides to ignore safety requirements, they are liable for intentional violation of those requirements.
Case law also emphasizes that criminal liability cannot be based on a retroactive assumption that someone had to be in charge on site. An ordinary employee is not turned into a site manager or a person in charge by informal authority, better language skills, or the forwarding of management’s orders. To attribute liability, an official obligation to act, competence, and a direct link to the resulting consequence must always be identified for a specific person.
Furthermore, multiple individuals may be held liable for the same consequence, as one employee’s mistake does not exclude another party’s liability in a shared chain of risk. In summary, occupational safety must function as a clear system before an accident occurs, rather than being paperwork constructed after the fact.
Read more here.