NFPA or NETA? 1

[MaintGuy]

A legal question for any of your Code guys out there. Consider if there were an injury during electrical maintenance and the big question was if there was neglect on maintaining electrical equipment. Where would the Lawyers and Judge lean to - NETA or NFPA as a source of reference? I beleve the scope of the maintenance recommendations from either organization go hand-in-hand however the frequency recommendations can be quite different. Which one is closer to credibility according to law?

 

[dpc]

I'd say NFPA. NETA is basically a trade association of electrical testing companies. NFPA has been around much longer and has the NEC and various fire codes that are used as legal standards throughout the entire country.

But that's just me of course.

 

[alehman]

I agree. But neither is enforcible or considered law unless formally adopted by the local authorities. NETA is not written as a code. Most authorities adopt a few sections of NFPA, like 70, which is the National Electrical Code. Most do not adopt all of NFPA.

You might look at NFPA 70b, Recommended Practice for Electrical Equipment Maintenance. Being a "recommended practice", this section is not enforcible.

Also, IEEE STD 902-1998™, IEEE GUIDE FOR MAINTENANCE, OPERATION, AND SAFETY OF INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL POWER SYSTEMS.

 

[electricpete]

Neither is law as was said above.

But in civil case it will be a matter of who can make a better argument about the relevance of the references as they relate to industry standard practice or negligence.

I think a better argument can be made for NFPA for reasons discussed above. They have many other standards that are adopted in various jurisdictions, whereas NETA has only a handful.

If the NETA has the more agressive testing schedule, that would be particularly hard to defend... it could be argued they are biased towards more frequent testing than needed for equipment reliability to pad the pockets of their constituency (testing companies)



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[Zogzog]

The 2009 NFPA 70E will have additional references to the NFPA 70B and/or NETA for testing requirements to validate the arc flash analysis. That direct reference may give enforcement some bigger teeth but for now I agree with alehmans statement.

 

[DonPhillips]

If you are talking strict liability, in the case of a civil lawsuit, I think an expert can cite the NFPA standard as the standard of care that an employer should have used to prevent a mishap.

If you are talking criminal liability, unless it has been adopted, I think the jurisdication does not have authority to enforce. When there is a mishap involving serious injury or death, this is when the media starts to ask why there is no law to prevent the incident.



Don Phillips

http://worthingtonengineering.com

 

[rbulsara]

I would think that depending upon the complexity of the machine involved, recommendations of manufacturers could also weigh in. NFPA or NETA may not cover specific maintenance requirements.

Also this assumes that the accident indeed was due to ill-maintained equipment and not my workman's error. This has to be established first.