Why aren't professors and universities liable for the death of students?

[energyresearch]

A recent article in Chemistry World reminded me of an earlier blog post about the death of the student Sheri Shangji in a chemistry laboratory. The blog post describes that basically, if a student is killed in a university laboratory, neither the professor concerned nor the university are liable to any significance. Ignoring an example such as the

Comments

[i_strannik]

As a PhD student, I did most of my work alone and at night. I worked with electrical equipment, vacuum stuff, microscopes, you name it

[the_physicist]

I've worked in labs in a university that had all the procedures in place to stop people working through the night (and was meant to stop people from working on dangerous things out of 9-5 hours).

I've also worked in labs that where no one gave a shit about health and safety.

And eeeehhh... I'm now on the side of 'have the difficult annoying procedures in place'. When heath and safety isn't a big issue a lot more students and researchers are harmed. In the ideal case there would simply be more lab space so people wouldn't have to share so much -_-.

[i_strannik]

What do you mean by "other side"? H&S or a prof?

I walked both sides of the isle - student/prof... What I do now is look at the student. If I trust them not to do themselves harm, I will close my eyes on some of the regulations concerning working hours and such, and if I don't, I won't. Part of the trust comes from watching them not forget to put their safety glasses on (I've kicked people out of the lab for not having them on), not leaving unlabeled waste around, stuff like that.

But in a situation where a lot of equipment is shared, I can't enforce my policies all the way. The result is what I said in the other post.

I am for selective enforcement of the regulations. :)

[the_physicist]

i think you misread what i wrote. i said 'on the side of' not 'other side

[pulnimar]

"i also agree that selective enforcement of regulations would be good

[the_physicist]

The problem with writing this kind of thing into the 'regulations' and why we have a committee to decide on these matters (that is, students possibly needing to be sent to extra training/swipe card access revoked and so on) on an individual basis is because there are dozens of different pieces of equipment in the lab, which someone can misuse or abuse in hundreds of different ways. You can't write such a comprehensive guide to cover all the bullshit students get up to. There could be a student who consistently does a hundred little minor things wrong that might not on their own warrant even mentioning, because then you'd be there all day writing this stuff down. Also, the students aren't always supervised at all times (plus, it's very often the post-docs who are complete screw ups, ehem), they're working independently. You can't penalize only those students who actually work within working hours when cleanroom committee members might happen to be in the lab too

[pulnimar]

Yep, committees and paperwork suck