“The principle that a person who employed an independent contractor would be liable for the negligence of that independent contractor where the independent contractor was engaged to carry out extra-hazardous or dangerous operations was binding on the Court of Appeal but its application should be kept as narrow as possible. It should be applied only to activities that were exceptionally dangerous whatever precautions were taken. Welding, the activity in the instant case, was not exceptionally dangerous provided reasonable precautions were taken, so the principle did not apply.”
WLR Daily, 13th November 2008
Source: www.lawreports.co.uk
Please note once a case has been fully reported in one of the ICLR series the corresponding WLR Daily summary is removed.