Nebraska § 48-412 - Safety appliances; codes and standards.

§ 48-412. Safety appliances; codes and standards.

All safety appliances prescribed by sections 48-401 to 48-424 shall be subject to the approval of the Commissioner of Labor. The commissioner is directed and empowered to formulate, adopt, publish and enforce such safety codes, orders, rules and standards as he deems necessary, in order that all employments and places of employment shall be, in all respects, so constructed, equipped, arranged, operated and maintained as to provide reasonable and adequate protection to the lives, health and safety of all persons employed therein and frequenting the same, as the nature of the employment will reasonably permit. Such codes as may be adopted shall be subject to modification, amendment or repeal at any time, in the discretion of the commissioner.

Safety appliance codes apply only where the relationship of employer and employee exists. Quist v. Duda, 159 Neb. 393, 67 N.W.2d 481 (1954).

The violation of a provision of a safety code intended to protect life, health, and safety of employees constitutes actionable negligence but such negligence must be shown to have been the proximate cause of the injury. Wertz v. Lincoln Liberty Life Ins. Co., 152 Neb. 451, 41 N.W.2d 740 (1950).

Rules of Department of Labor are not applicable to a farming and stockraising business. Groat v. Clausen, 139 Neb. 689, 298 N.W. 563 (1941).