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Personal injury case studies

This section discusses an injury occurring in the workplace that could otherwise have been avoided had appropriate steps been taken by the employer.

Injury at work - unsafe working practices

The claimant, a lady in her late twenties, worked for a town centre store and was employed as a shop assistant. Her main duties were arranging displays and working on the checkout during busy periods.

On the day of the accident because the shop was short staffed, she was asked to help unload a delivery van. There were a number of heavy boxes in the back of the van and the claimant was left to drag them out and load them in the warehouse. There was no loading equipment available because a number of delivery vehicles had arrived at the same time. The task therefore had to be done manually.

The claimant found after a couple of minutes that she could feel her back stiffening. As the last few boxes were taken out of the van she felt an intense pain in her back and dropped the box she was carrying.

Her line manager decided to take her to the hospital where a soft tissue back injury was diagnosed. She was prescribed pain killers and told to rest for at least one week. However after the first few days the pain actually grew worse and so the claimant went to her GP for additional advice. She was given stronger pain killers and signed off work for a further two weeks.

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The claimant ended up having 3 months off work and she decided to make an enquiry about compensation.

After telephoning our helpline, we instructed a local employment liability solicitor to deal with her case. It was clear from the outset that the employer had asked the claimant to perform tasks that were outside the scope of her job description, that she had not been trained to do and she had not able to use aids or equipment to make the job safer and easier. The employer had failed to safeguard the wellbeing of the employee and adopt safe working practices.

The employers insurers admitted liability in full after a brief correspondence exchange. Their internal investigation had found that the practices adopted were indeed flawed.

This allowed us to switch our focus to the claimants personal injury. 5 months on she was still suffering but the pain had reduced in severity. Physiotherapy was arranged an paid for in full by the insurers. Most insurers take the view that in circumstances such as these there is a mutual interest and benefit in arranging physio.

An orthopaedic doctor was asked to examine the claimant and the costs of the subsequent report were paid for by the insurers. Because of the continuing symptoms the claimant was re-examined after a period of 12 months from the date of the incident. Sometimes such a delay is necessary because you cannot rush a claim where an individual continues to suffer from the effects of an accident. The symptoms must plateau and allow the expert doctor to provide a realistic view on the recovery prospects.

In the second report the doctor suggested that the claimants problems would take up to 3 years to recover. This allowed settlement negotiations to commence and our legal team agreed an award of £6000 for pain and suffering. In addition the claimant received a further £3500 in relation to services and care received during the three year period. Legal costs were paid in full by the insurers.

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Summary - This example shows how employers can very often fail to put in place simple procedures to safeguard their employees and help maintain a safe working environment. Employees rarely refuse to perform tasks they are asked to do and this puts them at a disadvantage when faced with unsafe situations in the workplace. This is why health and safety compliance in the workplace is so important.

The claimant was initially wary of claiming against her employers insurers but when she realised that her problems were not going to go away, she decided that she had no choice.