Compensation for a fracture finger

skyjumper

hi guys, not sure if this is the right place.

a good friend of mine broke one of her fingers in her left hand. it happened partly due to her carelessness and partly due to another colleagues carelessness while shutting a door (a fire door which was pretty heavy).
She is an admin staff and does a lot of typing which forms 80% of her main work plus attending the phonecalls. she is off sick now with a plaster in her finger and a friend of her partner has suggested a no-win-no-fee firm to take up the case and sue the place she is working.

for me it's a bit out of the ordinary as she broke her finger which would take some weeks to heal(and would be paid anyway by the firm she is working )and then she would be able to getback to work. but they NOW think it might not be possible for her to do the kind of job she was doing prior to the accident. My personal view is that we are following a sue-ing culture and just like waht is happening across the atlantic.

may be i'm just ranting over nothing. just to let you know I have no personal gain or loss from this whole thing.

any opinions

quietheart

How terribly depressing...........

skyjumper

rovers - u kidding or just making fun of the whle thing

SandC

Skyjumper this was an accident at work and as such it is worth getting some advice on whether she has a case or not. Employers have insurance to cover these eventualities so it's not so much a case of trying to pin the blame on a third party. Rather than use the word 'sue' though, I would use the term 'claim'. People do it all the time without detriment to their employment status.

I'm not sure what I would do in the circumstances, obviously there is no loss of earnings. But she can probably find a local solicitor who gives a free consultation and she can decide from there.

SomeBozo

If she is being paid for time off to recover from the accident, what compensation does she therefore want ?

Bozo

maninthestreet

Is their evidence of negligence by the employer in this accident? It seems at the moment a simple case of someone having their finger caught in a door as it was closed.

skyjumper

i can't understand how this could have been prevented. it was after all an accident follwong a bit of careless behaviour.

SomeBozo

I agree it was just a accident, how is the employer liable for a finger trapped in door? Remove the doors?

Bozo

quietheart

skyjumper wrote: »

rovers - u kidding or just making fun of the whle thing

Not kidding at all. There's so many awful things that people have to deal with every day and then there's your friend wanted to sue someone because she had an accident.
I was bitten by a dog a few years ago when leafleting, went to A&E, had stitches, couldn't work for a bit, the following day a no-win no fee company knocked at my door asking if I'd had an accident, I said I wasn't interested and they said "no dog bites then"........ so clearly this company was getting personal info from A&E depts to fuel their business.
Hope your friend's finger heals quickly, she had an accident that's all, nobody elses fault.
We all end up paying in the end when people sue unnecessarily.

lilac_lady

If she had lost a finger instead of breaking it, maybe she'd have a case if the door was faulty. Otherwise, she should take it as a lesson on how to go through doors safely. Her finger will be sore though, so take her some grapes!

tyllwyd

Maybe if your friend will struggle doing as much typing as before, she might be best off talking to the company about how they might be able to change her duties so that she can continue with them. That might be a lot more important to her in the long term than a few thousand pounds compensation (especially since they might reduce any compensation to reflect the fact that it was partly her own carelessness).