Workers typically need certain kinds of equipment to do their jobs safely. This simple principle becomes tricky to apply when the job hazard workers require protection from is the risk of violence. Police officers are the perfect example. Because police officers face the threat of violence every day, police departments issue them a variety of weapons, such as batons, stun guns, pepper spray and firearms. But the need for such weapons is much less clear for other government workers who, strictly speaking, aren’t “law enforcement” officers but have law enforcement duties. Must government agencies provide such workers with weapons if those workers also face the risk of violence? The answer may depend on the workers’ duties and the weapons they demand. Here are two cases dealing with this issue that ended in different results.

Workers’ compensation provides benefits for workers who are injured in the course of their employment. It also protects workers from being sued by any third party they may injure in the course of their employment. Thus, for example, a worker who gets hurt operating a crane would normally be entitled to workers’ comp benefits. And a pedestrian injured by that worker usually wouldn’t be able to sue him. But what if the worker was drunk when the incident occurred? Does the worker’s drunkenness affect whether the incident was in “the course of” his employment? Stated differently, does being drunk disqualify the worker from eligibility for benefits and remove his immunity from being sued by the pedestrian? Here are two cases in which a court and tribunal had to answer these questions.

“A picture is worth a thousand words.” Yes, it’s a cliché but, like most clichés, it’s true. In the OHS context, pictures and photographs document an incident scene or the conditions that led to it in ways that mere descriptions can’t. For example, photographs can show the condition of a fall arrest system that failed or the state of the factory floor where a worker tripped and fell. That’s why government officials typically take photographs during investigations of incidents and why you should do the same. Of course, the story that photos reveal can either help or hurt an employer’s case. Here are two cases in which photographs proved to be crucial evidence, in one case dooming the employer and in the other getting it off the hook.

Employers have a duty to protect not only workers’ safety but also their health. In other words, employers must ensure that workers don’t get sick in the workplace. And in certain workplaces, such as hospitals and nursing homes, that duty is critical because workers may be exposed to highly infectious diseases, such as influenza. Sick workers in these settings pose a health risk not only to co-workers but also to vulnerable patients. So to contain influenza outbreak, employers might suspend workers without pay if they refuse to get a flu shot or take antiviral medication. But do such suspensions violate workers’ privacy and right to control what goes into their own bodies? Here are two cases involving almost identical flu policies in which arbitrators came to opposite decisions.

In the Canadian system, power to regulate safety is shared by the federal and provincial governments. The federal government regulates “federal undertakings,” such as railways, banks, TV stations and airlines. The provinces regulate safety within their own boundaries. While this arrangement seems simple, its application can be tricky, especially for employers who are engaged in a “federal undertaking.” Although the employer is subject to federal regulation, the property on which the undertaking takes place is likely to be within provincial boundaries. Do the safety laws of the province in which that property is located (either the province’s OHS or occupiers’ liability laws) apply to the employer? The answer basically depends on whether applying the provincial safety law would interfere with the employer’s federal undertaking. Here are two recent cases that deal with this complex issue.