The motive for publishing this post conferring about the Duty of Care ( hereinafter abbreviated to DoC ) conundrum arose after yet another 
incident at our factory outlet some weeks past. To begin with, let's describe the contretemps. A young couple visited our store wanting to buy four of our A2 Natural Ready-Made frames for the prints they had with them. We duly showed them the frames they were looking for, which, by the way, were glazed with clear glass, not plastic. The couple liked the frames and paid for them. They then blurted out that they were in a hurry and that they were going to put the prints inside the frames right away, there and then, at our store counter. They didn't ask our permission to do so, they just told us that's what they were going to do. The female Customer then quickly started to tear away the plastic wrapping of a frame, opening it up so as to put her print in.
That's when we intervened, asking her to refrain from continuing since our store safety protocol does not permit Customers to work or do their own picture frame fitting up while on or at our premises. The male Customer immediately became agitated, vociferously protesting, aggressively and loudly protesting, arguing and challenging our intimations firstly as rude, then offensive, and, lastly, illegal.
When we maintained our stance and declined permission for the couple to continue their unauthorised fitting up, they demanded a refund for the frames they had just bought and threatened our business by stating their intention of publishing not one, but several, negative Google business reviews.
Our staff did not react or respond to the obvious provocations. The attending Salesperson called the Duty Manager who simply took back the frames and refunded the Customers regretting that we could not fulfil their shopping requirements. The Manager diplomatically wished them well in their shopping endeavours elsewhere.
At this point, some readers might well ask: "All right, why don't you let Customers put prints into frames at your store?". Well, we will begin by answering that we have already, in the main, addressed this particular question in our past post “Can I put the poster in the frame while I’m here here?”. However, we think that the subject is interesting and topical enough to elaborate further.
But first, let's see if we can condense DoC in a brief, simple, or concise sentence. And it could be condensed into something like this: DoC is the legal obligation of all persons not to injure, contribute, impart, or cause harm, that could reasonably be foreseen, to any other persons, or to their property.
In plain English, we, as retailers of picture frame goods and provider of picture framing services, must do all we can not only not to harm or hurt our Customers but, just as importantly, to reasonably foresee, avoid and prevent any actions or inactions that they might do so themselves.
Most business owners would know about, or would have heard of the classic case of a shopper slipping on a wet floor, falling down, getting hurt, and then suing the store for negligence as in the now famous Strong v Woolworths Limited. In that case the High Court ruled that store owners have a duty to periodically inspect and remove slipping hazards, and that failure to do so, may make them liable for Customers' injuries.
However, many say that this is but clever legal sophistry which perversely passes off the onus of personal responsibility to others. Instead of making people responsible and liable for the consequences of their own, careless, inattentive and irresponsible actions and inactions, DoC perversely penalizes uninvolved, bystanding and innocent third parties such store proprietors.
Every day at or in shops, stores and other public spaces and places we witness shoppers glued to their music players or phones not looking , nor caring where, or into whom. they might be going, walking or running into.
These pedestrian missteps often cause falls and collisions, which, at times can and do result in physical and, or psychological harm, injuries and even death. Alas, since most store owners do possess money, assets, or both, victims and or their families routinely pay legal hirelings known as injury lawyers, to sue them.
Of course, it's pure and simple legalized thuggery disguised as civil proceedings, but that's what DoC doctrine has perversely transmogrified into.
Lawyers, laws and the courts they created, pursue, engage and practise in an enormous, gigantic, global, financial prostitution industry where only the rich are pursued and made to pay for torts, whether real or imaginary. The mindless, the careless and the witless, being almost invariably poor or penurious, are seldom, if ever, pursed.
And this because there's no money to be made from them. So much for justice, or the law, intended to be fair, just or blind. In essence, most DoC actions, deploy perfectly legal chicanery, conceived, procreated, nurtured and maintained with legalistic sophistry, by lawyers for their own, proprietary growth and expansion of their professional industry. We wholeheartedly subscribe to that view.
That being said about DoC, we need to explain why our store policy disallows Customers from fitting up their prints into frames at our store. To that end, let us thus examine a fairly common shadow box picture frame such as the one below:
The photograph above includes at least 6, and more, sharp, acute and dangerous metal and glass points or edges. All and each of these are capable of severely cutting, wounding or injuring fingers, hands or other bodily parts while being, touched, bent, handled or worked upon, as is the case when fitting up artwork inside picture frames.
We know of, and are aware of these dangers because we have workers who provide custom picture framing services which also involve similar artwork fitting up
Since these dangers are known to us, DoC laws compel us to do our best to avoid and prevent them. A widespread and accepted method to prevent workplace injuries is to train people as to how to handle glass and metal components, handling processes and assemblies.
So, yes, you've read correctly. In practical terms, in order to legally and safely allow Customers to do their own fitting up we would first have to train them on the ways and methods to handle, disassemble and assemble hazardous picture frame components before allowing them do it themselves.
Just as importantly, and as with most commercial enterprises, we purchase public liability insurance. One of the most important conditions is that Customers be excluded and prevented from undertaking or carrying out any fitting up, repairs, modification or any picture framing work while at our premises lest they hurt or injure themselves. Absolutely not negotiable, under, or for, any circumstances. There you have it.