12th April 2006

Accidents at work lead to claims for compensation

Protective equipment and the law

There is law which covers any instance where protective equipment, such as visors, gloves, masks or kneepads, would prevent injury in the workplace. They are the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

The first duty on the employer is to prevent or remove whatever may cause the injury and not rely on protective equipment as a barrier, but the law recognises that is sometimes not reasonably possible. For example sparks may always be created in welding work, and then the law is that the protective equipment should be effective.

Clear Answers' solicitors have been successful in 2 recent similar cases:

Burned knees

A pavier in Gateshead was instructed to form a concrete driveway by his Council employer. He prepared the driveway and filled it in with concrete and then had to kneel on the concrete using a float to flatten it.

He suffered from chemical burns to both knees. He had served his time as a ground worker trained on bitumen and tarmac and had only been working on mason jobs for about 10 months.

His employers had failed to assess and provide adequate protective equipment, particularly knee pads, since they were aware that lime in concrete could cause chemical burns. His employers settled his claim before it went to trial.

Shoulder injury

This claimant was a glass cutter in Essex. He was placing a large piece of glass in a wooden rack when the glass hit a metal girder running across the top causing the glass to shatter and fall resulting in a deep wound to the claimant's right shoulder.

The defendants said it was our client's fault as he was an experienced glass cutter and was well aware of the maximum size of glass for the rack and that this piece was too big. They said that he had received a verbal reprimand the day before the accident for attempting to place glass in excess of the maximum size into the rack. They also said that the claimant had been provided with industry standard cut-proof sleeves, and that shoulder protection was not available as it was not reasonably foreseeable that it was required.

The Judge found that the claimant did know the maximum size glass to be put into the rack, but found the defendants liable in respect of the position of the metal girder and the lack of better arm protection, specifically guards manufactured by Kevlar.

The defendants had not produced evidence on the issue of personal protective equipment being industry standard and what efforts they had made with the supplier before the accident to meet such standards.

Our client won his claim in full after the case was heard in Court.

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