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Occupational health and safety training alone is not sufficient. What actually happens in the workplace is also decisive.

In its judgment in case no. 21 Cdo 357/2025 of 20 May 2026, the Czech Supreme Court addressed the conditions under which an employer may be released from liability for an accident at work.

An employee working as a material handling technician stepped onto a pallet with stored goods, fell through it and injured his knee. The employer argued that, by doing so, he had breached safety rules with which he had been duly familiarised. In addition, he had previously received a written warning specifically for climbing on pallets.

However, the proceedings showed that the situation in the workplace may not have been so clear-cut. According to some of the evidence, climbing on pallets was common practice and supervisory employees were also said to have acted in the same way.

The Czech Supreme Court reiterated an important point: it is not enough to have a safety rule in place, train employees on it and file the training record away.

If an employer wishes to be released from liability, it must also be able to prove that it consistently required compliance with the rules and appropriately monitored such compliance.

At the same time, however, the court stated that this does not mean that an employer must monitor every employee at every moment, and that an individual breach of the rules does not automatically mean that the occupational health and safety system is not functioning.

What follows from this in practice?

In occupational health and safety, not only the content of internal rules is decisive, but also the actual practice within the company.

If supervisory employees themselves fail to comply with the rules or tolerate breaches of those rules over a long period of time, it may be very difficult, in the event of an accident at work, to prove that the employer actually required compliance with them.

Occupational health and safety that is correct on paper therefore does not necessarily mean occupational health and safety that is legally effective.