Injured when being passed a heavy object?

Injured when being passed a heavy object?

Manual handling is an everyday part of many working people’s lives. It’s important for employers to get it right when it comes to health and safety law for manual handling activities in the workplace. This is governed by The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.

The gist of these regulations is that an employer has a very important duty to:

• Avoid manual handling as much as possible.
• Provide equipment to remove the need or lessen the danger of manual handling.
• Risk assess any manual handling activities that cannot be avoided.
• Train and supervise manual handling activities.

So what happens if you are properly trained and everything seems nicely risk assessed but you are passed a load by a colleague and something goes wrong during the transfer? Perhaps the colleague thought you had grip of the load when you didn’t and released their grip, causing the weight to suddenly be on you? Or even for the load to fall. Or what if the load was passed to you incorrectly or too quickly?

Can you still claim if your employer has taken all necessary steps but a colleague is at fault?

Your Rights

If it’s your colleague who is negligent, you can actually still claim from your employer; even if they have properly risk assessed the move and you are sufficiently trained. If a colleague is negligent, your employer is vicariously liable which means they must take the blame for the negligent actions of one of their employees.

In many instances, vicarious liability imposes a strict duty on your employer which means they simply have to accept liability and you can make a successful claim for personal injury compensation.

So, don’t panic if it’s your colleague who is to blame – your employer may still have to pay you out.

100% Compensation

For work accident claims, we still offer 100% compensation agreement for our clients even though the law has changed and other lawyers will want to take 25% from your payout.

Lawyers still get paid by the other side, we just don’t get as much as we used to which is why other solicitors will want to take a cut from your claim. But we take on and win such a high volume of cases that we can afford to take the hit ourselves so you keep all 100% of your compensation payout!