Serious accidents at sites open to the public

Facing the accident. Defending the company.

An accident on a ride. A fall from equipment. An incident on a ski lift. A fire in a hotel. A difficult evacuation. A collision. A crowd surge.

When a visitor or employee is seriously injured on a site, the company must immediately provide help, secure the area and understand what happened.

It must also prepare to respond.

Investigations sometimes begin while rescue operations are still under way. Staff are questioned. Installations are examined. Safety registers, maintenance contracts, internal procedures and email exchanges may be seized.

Within a few hours, an operational accident becomes a criminal case.

Vouland Avocats assists companies, site operators and their directors before, during and after such crises.

The risks facing operators

Public safety relies on a succession of human and technical operations.

An accident may be linked to:

• the operation of a ride or piece of equipment;
• a maintenance operation;
• a ski lift or transport system;
• the reception, movement or evacuation of the public;
• a fire or a failure of emergency equipment;
• a fall, a collision or a crowd surge;
• weather conditions or a natural event;
• the actions of an employee or a contractor;
• information poorly passed on between several departments;
• an alert that was not properly understood or dealt with.

These risks concern visitors as well as employees and external contractors.

They arise in particular in amusement and leisure parks, ski areas, tourist sites, hotels, sports venues, event spaces, establishments open to the public and groups operating several sites.

A serious accident does not yet identify who is responsible

After an accident, everyone naturally looks for a cause.

Criminal liability requires more.

It is necessary to determine which rule applied, how the risk had been identified, what measures had been taken and who really had the power and the means to act.

The investigation will seek in particular to understand:

• who was responsible for the equipment or area concerned;
• who could decide to open, close or evacuate it;
• what checks had been carried out;
• how maintenance operations were organised;
• whether incidents or alerts had already been reported;
• what information had been passed up to management;
• what tasks had been entrusted to contractors;
• whether the teams had received the necessary instructions and training;
• how decisions were taken on the day of the accident.

The seriousness of the consequences is not, on its own, proof of criminal fault.

Our work consists in reconstructing the real organisation of the site and the chain of decisions, without reducing the analysis to the outcome of the accident alone.

The first hours: acting without settling on an explanation too soon

In the first moments, the director or site manager must meet several demands at once:

• organise rescue and make the area safe;
• inform the authorities and group management;
• preserve material useful to the investigation;
• support the victims and the teams;
• respond to investigators’ first requests;
• manage the consequences for operations;
• control internal and external communication.

Yet at this stage they rarely have all the technical information.

An explanation presented too quickly as certain may then be taken up in interviews, expert reports and throughout the proceedings.

We act from the start of the crisis to help the company take the necessary decisions without anticipating the conclusions of the investigation.

Interviews, police custody and searches

Senior managers are not always prepared for the reality of a criminal investigation.

An interview is not just about recounting what you know. The questions concern the powers exercised, the resources available, the alerts received, the decisions taken and the measures that could have prevented the accident.

A site manager, technical manager or operational manager may be questioned as a witness, in a voluntary interview or in police custody. Both the head office and the operating premises may be searched.

We prepare and assist:

• the company as a legal entity;
• directors and corporate officers;
• site managers;
• operations managers;
• technical and maintenance managers;
• safety managers;
• employees involved in the operations;
• manufacturers, maintenance companies and contractors implicated.

We also take care to identify early on any conflicts of interest between the company and the individuals being questioned.

Understanding how the site really works

In a multi-site group, responsibility cannot be deduced from the organisation chart alone.

Some decisions are taken centrally. Others fall to the site manager, a technical department, an operations manager or a delegate. Maintenance may be in-house, pooled or entrusted to several contractors.

The defence therefore requires a concrete examination of:

• delegations of authority;
• functional organisation charts;
• safety and operating procedures;
• inspection and maintenance registers;
• contracts with manufacturers and contractors;
• reports by inspection bodies;
• training and authorisations;
• incident histories;
• alerts and corrective actions;
• exchanges between head office, the site and external contractors.

This analysis makes it possible to understand who did what, with what information and what resources.

It also makes it possible to distinguish between a technical failure, a one-off error, an organisational shortcoming and a fault that may be classified as a criminal offence.

Technical expertise at the heart of the proceedings

Serious accidents frequently give rise to expert reports on the equipment, maintenance, operating conditions or the sequence of the accident.

These operations can shape the proceedings for a long time.

We work with the relevant technical experts in order to:

• reconstruct the chronology precisely;
• identify the various possible causes;
• analyse operating and maintenance data;
• discuss the methods and hypotheses adopted;
• submit adversarial technical observations;
• distinguish the material cause from legal attribution.

A faulty piece of equipment may explain how the accident happened. It is not necessarily enough to establish who is criminally responsible.

Before the accident: preparing directors for a criminal crisis

Safety systems are generally designed to prevent accidents and protect people.

They are more rarely designed to prepare the organisation for the investigation that will follow.

We help groups and site operators prepare their directors and teams:

• analysis of the risks specific to the activity and the various sites;
• review of delegations of authority and decision-making channels;
• review of alert and crisis management procedures;
• clarification of roles between head office and local management;
• drawing up response protocols after a serious accident;
• training for interviews, police custody and searches;
• role-plays based on realistic scenarios;
• work on posture, stress and first decisions;
• debriefing and provision of quick-reference sheets.

The scenarios are adapted to the organisation’s risks: an accident on a ride, an incident on a ski lift, the evacuation of a site, a fire in a hotel or an accident involving an employee.

The aim is not to teach directors a prepared speech.

It is to enable them to understand the procedure, keep their reflexes in a tense situation and take reliable decisions with information that is still incomplete.

Prevent. React. Defend.

Before an accident, we help the company identify its responsibilities and prepare its teams.

When one occurs, we act in the first hours to support directors, preserve useful material and coordinate the legal response.

During the investigation and the trial, we reconstruct the facts, discuss the expert reports and defend the company and the individuals implicated separately.

The safety of people is first and foremost an operational requirement.

When an accident occurs, it also becomes a criminal law issue.

Marseille – Paris – throughout France

Vouland Avocats acts for companies and groups operating sites open to the public throughout France.

Has a serious accident just occurred on one of your sites? Has an investigation, interview, police custody, search or expert assessment been announced?

Contact us to organise an initial confidential response.