Health & Safety – No win no feeHere at Accident Compensation Aid our solicitors who are specialists in Health & Safety law will pursue your claim against your employer on a no win no fee basis. Employers are always open to being pursued for compensation if an employee has an accident at work or indeed if clients or customers have an accident on the premises or in their care. This means that employers have a duty of care to ensure that they provide not only safe premises but also safe working practices, general maintenance, safe protective equipment. Health and Safety is a necessity in all areas and breaching any part of the Health & Safety Regulations is considered serious and would give cause for people to have a no win no fee claim against the employer. All companies have to comply with health and safety and have a written Health and Safety policy for their workplace. They have to ensure all areas of their working practices would not injure or harm people and carry out regular risk assessments to identify any potential hazards and to manage any hazards effectively using the best methods available. The best method is of course to withdraw a hazard completely, or to minimise potential of an injury, however this might not always be possible and so further safeguards must be established, recorded and enforced by the management team and the employees. Employers therefore have a duty to safeguard their employees by providing safe equipment and training for employees. The effect of this has dramatically cut down the amount of accidents both minor and serious incurred in the workplace. Many employers now employ health and safety staff or appointed persons who constantly monitor the safety of the work premises. However it is astonishing to many no win no fee solicitors how many employers still do not take the safety of their employees seriously enough to prevent accidents which would not have occurred if the proper health and safety regulations had been adhered to. Health and Safety legislation introduced safe working practices for many areas of the work place, whether it was a low risk environment such as an office or high risk environment such as a building or construction site. Employers must ensure that all the areas of your work place and the job you do are safe at all times. If Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) is required to reduce the risk of an injury then this must be provided by the employer at no cost to the employee and must be worn by the employee. Work equipment is regulated by the Provision and use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998. Regulation 4 requires that work equipment is suitable from the point of view of health and safety. In addition it must be maintained in good working order and staff must be trained in its use and be aware of any health and safety issues. It is also interesting to look at the vicarious liability cases. In Harrison V Mitchelin Co Ltd a case which was decided in 1984 prior to the No win no fee emerge. Mr Harrison was a tool grinder employed by Mitchelin. He was standing on a duck board of his machine talking to another employee, another employee whilst pushing a truck along a passage decided as a joke to suddenly turn the truck outside the chalk lines and pushed the edge of it under Harison’s duck board. The question here was whether the employee had acted in the course of his employment making Mitchelin liable or if the employee had embarked on a frolic of his own. It was held that the test for determining vicarious liability was whether a reasonable man would say either that the employees act was part and parcel of his employment even though it was prohibited or unauthorised by the employer. Or was it so divergent from his employment as to be plainly alien to it. It was held that a reasonable man would say even though the employees act would never have been approved by the defendant it was nonetheless part and parcel of his employment. In another case McCreedy V Securicor decided in 1991, prior to the no win no fee procedure, the plaintiff and a colleague were foolish around on trolleys used at their work as a result the plaintive hand was crushed when the other employee closed a vault door on it. The court held that the employees negligence was unauthorised and wrongful act and was independent of any authorised act. They held that in the course of his employment and within the scope of the employment have the same meaning, the other employee was not acting for his employer when he shut the door on his colleagues hand but was simply carrying out a prank. As this was not under a no win no fee agreement it probably cost the plaintiff not only a crushed hand but a considerable amount of legal costs. |
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