Question

The liability for accidents that occur during the mining of minerals and metals might be placed on either miners (that is, employees of mining companies) or on the owners of mining companies. Mine owners will spend more money on preventing mining accidents if they are made liable for such accidents than they would if the miners were made liable for such accidents. (Hint: Think about the assignment of liability for accidents to one party as being equivalent to the assignment of a property right over the level of safety involved in the operation of a mine to the other party.) (5 marks.)

Answer 1

The liability for accidents that occur during mining of minerals and metals might be placed on either miners who work inside inside the minning fields i.e. the employees of the mining companies or it can be placed on the owners of the minning companies. Placing of the liability actually works as an incentive for each party to take some positive steps to reduce the number of accidents.

If the liability is placed on the miners, it may be imposed on them asking them to be more attentive while entering the minning fields and take necessary protection while working inside the minning fields. They may be accused for not using necessary preventive meassures inside the minning area.It must increase their social cost of working in the minning fields because of the accusation. As a result they might take more strict premitive meassures and use more modern equipments and also be attentive while working inside the minning fields.

On the other hand the liability can be placed on the owners of the minning fields. Infact the probability of placing the liability on the owners of the minning companies is way higher than the previous one. The accusation may on different aspects e.g. not providing proper modern equipments to the minners, not taking necessary premitive steps to avoid occurence of accidents, not providing proper training to the new minners to work safely inside the minning field etc. Working inside minning firlds is a very risky job. Minners who work inside the minning fields are very prone to accidents. It is important for the minning companies to provide modern and safe equipments to their workers. They should introduce regorous training program to make the minners learn about the safety tools inside the minning area. Minning companies should also provide suitable life insurance for the workers and thair family. If the minning companies are made liable for occurrence of the accidents. It might affect the business of the companies as some legal steps might be taken against them. Hence this may increase their social cost of business and reduce their profit and scope of business to a large extend. Hence in order to avoid conflicts the companies must look to spend more money in providing proper modern equipments, necessary premitive tools and provide rigorous training to their employees to reduce the number of accurrence of accidents.