Abstract
Accident liability allocation is significant for social justice and industry safety. The allocation of liability between individuals and organizations depends on the judgment of their negligence in accidents. However, current judicial practice does not show a clear distinction between different accident types when allocating liabilities, and there is a lack of scientific evidence to guide the legal decision-making process in liability allocation. Unfortunately, current accident causation research does not sufficiently meet the requirements as scientific evidence to support the realization of more strategic and targeted liability allocation. This study introduces the qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) method into the field of accident analysis using crisp-set QCA (csQCA) to explore the causal distinctions between fall and non-fall accidents based on the human factor analysis and classification system (HFACS). The results show that organizational influence and unsafe acts distinctively signify fall and non-fall accidents, and that the precondition of unsafe acts is their junction. Theoretically, this study 1) furnishes a QCA tool that allows academic research with uncertainty to be used in the body of evidence that meets the requirements of law, thereby extending the application scope of accident research to the legal practice of liability allocation; and 2) provides meaningful references for the judgment of negligence and accident liability for judicial practice.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 51878382) for their support for this study. The authors are also grateful for input from industry professionals who participated in this research. We would like to thank Editage (https://www.editage.cn) for English language editing.
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Wang, J., Cheng, R., Chong, HY. et al. Distinctive Judicial-Tailored Causation References of Construction Accidents. KSCE J Civ Eng 26, 3161–3172 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-022-1239-2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12205-022-1239-2