Pages On: Employer Negligence
Whether it’s shortcutting health & safety, or putting profit before people, a company can be outrightly negligent if it doesn’t have its workers best interests at heart. If your employer fails to provide you with the tools and knowledge to perform your duties which puts you in harms way, or has questionable management practices that leave you injured, you’ll likely be able to claim employer negligence compensation.
60-year-old forced into redundancy following accident at work
Posted: 1 May 2016
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Knee Injury, Leg Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A 60-year-old warehouse operative, who has remained unnamed, was forced into redundancy following a preventable accident at work. The worker had just started his shift and was walking through the warehouse, when a fork-lift truck backed out of an alley and knocked him over. The fork-lift drove over his right leg, breaking it and causing substantial damage to his knee. He was rushed to hospital where he had to undergo surgery. He soon started to experience pain in his left leg, meaning he could only walk with crutches – a situation that…
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Teenager goes deaf and another dies from workplace carbon monoxide poisoning
Posted: 25 April 2016
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Industrial Deafness and Disease, Workplace Injuries, Wrongful & Accidental Death
A teenager has been robbed of his hearing in an accident at his place of work. The fast food worker also lost his friend and co-worker in the same incident. The two young men had been working at a South London carry-out food retailer when they were overcome with carbon monoxide fumes. They were found unconscious on the store room floor by their employer, who called emergency services. The two young men were rushed to hospital where one lost his fight for life and the other was in a coma for several days. It was…
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Berkshire man receives £150,000 for life-changing workplace injuries
Posted: 12 April 2016
Posted in: Arm Injury, Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries
A Berkshire man in his 40s has been awarded £150,000 after sustaining life-changing injuries at his place of work. The man, a scaffolder, had been descending a 13-foot metal ladder to reach the ground from the first floor of the scaffolding when the ladder slipped. Work was being carried out on a block of flats in West London during 2012 when the accident occurred. It transpired that the ladders had not been adequately attached to the scaffolding by the construction company who contracted him. As a result, as soon as the scaffolder climbed on…
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Over £12,000 to Bradford council worker over toilet seat injury
Posted: 22 July 2015
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Finger Injuries, Workplace Injuries
According to recently released figures, over £30million has been paid out to council workers since 2012, including a payment of over £12,000 to an employee that was ‘hit by a toilet lid when flushing’. The figures were released following a Freedom of Information request, which revealed that over 3,100 compensation payments were made to council employees over the last three years. Councils have since been urged to improve health and safety measures in the workplace. The claims ranged from slip, trips and falls to unstable objects falling and causing injury.…
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Laundry firm fined over worker spinal injury
Posted: 19 November 2014
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Faulty Work Equipment, Leg Injuries, Spine & Back Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A Telford-based laundry firm has been fined £8,000 after a worker suffered “serious injuries” from the machinery. 19-year-old Matthew Brown had been working at the Cleantex Ltd launderette when the accident happened. He had been retrieving clothing from one of the industrial machines when he became trapped, leaving him with serious leg and spinal injuries. Following the accident Mr Brown required emergency surgery on the 22nd October 2013. It was heard in court that he thought that the machine had stopped moving when he entered it to remove the clothing, but…
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Ex soldier suing for frost-bite developed during training
Posted: 28 July 2014
Posted in: Armed Forces Injuries, Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries
A 29-year-old ex-soldier is suing the Ministry of Defence after a training challenge caused him to suffer life-changing injuries. John Billet had been taking part in a leadership training exercise in Hampshire in 2009, whereby he and others were forced to lie in deep snow and camp in freezing conditions, when he suffered serious tissue damage to his hands and feet. He is suing the Ministry of Defence for £500,000. Having left the army in 2011, Mr Billet’s legal team said that the military career he loved was destroyed by the damage…
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Heinz worker has hand sliced off by unguarded machine
Posted: 19 May 2014
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Faulty Work Equipment, Hand Injuries, Workplace Injuries
The food giant Heinz has been fined after an engineer had his hand sliced off by a potato-peeling machine. The worker suffered “life-changing injuries” in the accident that could easily have been avoided at the Heinz factory in Norfolk. 49-year-old Alec Brackenbury had been servicing the machine at the company’s Westwick plant in Worstead when the accident happened last June. Mr Brackenbury is unable to work, drive or carry out many of his day-to-day duties as a result of the accident. The company received a fine of £50,000 at Norwich Magistrates’…
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Network Rail to be sentenced after worker death
Posted: 11 September 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Head and Brain Injuries, Spine & Back Injuries, Workplace Injuries, Wrongful & Accidental Death
Network Rail has pleaded guilty to a health and safety breach after 64-year-old Malcolm Slater died while repairing power lines. Mr. Slater had been working on the line between Norwich and London in 2008 when he fell 15ft (4.5m) onto the tracks below. The court heard that Network Rail had failed to provide workers with safe equipment, as previous overloading had weakened the hoist that they were using. Network Rail had already admitted to similar failures in past hearings, as the equipment provided for lifting their employees was unsafe. The court heard…
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Jamie Oliver’s Ministry of Food temporarily closed for workplace safety check
Posted: 30 June 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries, Workplace Slip
Jamie Oliver’s project ‘Ministry of Food’ in Rotherham has been temporarily closed down after concerns regarding health and safety. Rotherham Borough Council has closed the centre after a member of staff fell on a broken step. The missing stair nose had been repeatedly reported to bosses, but nothing had been done to fix it. The council said that “a full survey of the premises” is now under way. Reactive rather than proactive The GMB union are concerned that an investigation only began because of the accident, not as a mechanism to prevent…
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One in four construction sites fail safety inspections
Posted: 9 April 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries
One in four of the construction sites visited in Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk during a month-long inspection initiative failed health and safety checks. Inspectors visited the counties as part of a national Health and Safety Executive (HSE) clampdown aimed at reducing workplace death, injury and ill health. A total of 17 of the 71 sites they inspected were found not to meet the minimum legal standards for health and safety, and 18 enforcement notices were issued as a result. According to HSE figures, 19 workers were killed while working in…
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Businessman's safety failures led to worker's injury
Posted: 3 April 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Leg Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A South London businessman and his company have been prosecuted for safety breaches after a worker narrowly escaped being crushed by a collapsing load of stone slabs. The two-tonne set of ten slabs fell from the side of a lorry as workmen were trying to unload them at a workshop. Employee Radoslaw Samson was on the trailer with a colleague having removed the packaging supporting the slabs so each could be removed individually by a forklift truck. As he altered a clamp at the end of a lifting arm attached…
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New online guidance on workplace health surveillance
Posted: 20 March 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries
New online guidance has been launched to make it easier for employers to understand what they need to do to check and protect their workers’ health. The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published new guidelines on health surveillance, which is needed where, even after all precautions are taken, there is still a risk that workers may be exposed to chemicals or other hazardous substances. Developed with industry, the clear and simple guidance makes it easier for employers to decide whether their workers need health surveillance, how to go about…
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Missed opportunity for reforming health and safety at work
Posted: 6 February 2013
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Workplace Injuries
A recently published official report is a “missed opportunity” to voice strong concerns about Government plans to change health and safety regulations, according to the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH). Professor Ragnar Löfstedt’s ‘Reclaiming health and safety for all: a review of progress one year on’ was published by the Department for Work and Pensions. Former Employment Minister Chris Grayling MP commissioned the report, which examines how the Government has implemented recommendations made by both Prof Löfstedt and Lord Young of Graffham. The Government has recommended a swift…
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Burton builder fined after chainsaw injures contractor
Posted: 18 December 2012
Posted in: Employer Negligence, Hand Injuries, Workplace Injuries
A Burton upon Trent builder has been fined for dangerous working practices and for failing to report an incident after a Derbyshire worker seriously injured his hand on a chainsaw. The worker caught his left hand on the moving teeth of the machine after it snagged during work to cut felled trees. His thumb was cut to the bone, breaking the joint, and he also injured his fingers. He was unable to work for six weeks. Stafford Magistrates Court heard that in March 2012 the worker had been sub-contracted to…
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