Can anyone advise on a accident/claim issue please. Thoughts need

swingaloo

Oh had an accident at work 18 months ago. He has since had 2 operations, endless scans and tests and the result is that he is now on Industrial Injuries benefit and E.S.A. The company he worked for at the time terminated his contract as he was left unable to do his job and he was given 'ill health retirement'.

He thought he would eventually get better and be able to find another job but this has not proved the case. He has now been put on ' pain management' at the hospital clinic as they have not been able to correct the injury.

To add to this, he is only 48 so has years of working life left if he could find a job. The problem is that he has always done manual work and since the accident he can only walk at a snails pace and is in constant pain.

The union put him in touch with a solicitor and he put in a claim against his former company on the basis that he was injured doing his job. Besides the fact that he has lost his income and has little chance of being able to find another job which he is capable of doing, he is also in constant pain. So he wished to claim for not just the injury but also the loss of income we have suffered.

The solicitor wrote to the company as he said that he had to get them to admit liability. (Now I dont understand how they can deny liability, he was covering his duty when he had the fall and wouldnt have been in those circumstances if he had not been at work).

The company at first denied any liability so the solicitor wrote to them again. They have now written back to say that they deny liabilty because ' He was not wearing the correct regulation footwear on the day in question'. This is an outright lie!!!!!! and just a way of coping out.

We wrote back to solicitor explaining that and pointed out that if he had been wearing the incorrect footwear then management would have spoken to him about it before he left the office as they are very strict on that sort of thing. We also pointed out that he had NEVER been to work in anything but the regulation footwear and that they were obviously covering ther backs. The solicitor has not responded to those comments in his letter of reply.

He has has written to us saying that perhaps the best way to respond would be to ' ask the company to admit liability on a 50/50 basis', accepting joint liability (Why???:mad:) and so that 'any compensation you would recieve would be reduced by 50% to reflect the shared liability. I dont understand that at all???

We feel as if the solicitor is not really fighting on his behalf as he seems very negative in his letters, but, he is funded by the union and we are not in a position to fund a change of solicitor ourselves unless we have a realistic chance of a sucessful claim.

All we have recieved now from this solicitor is a form to 'sign here if you wish to accept joint liability'. It also goes on to say that if the company still refuse to accept any liability then he will instruct a Barrister to advise on liability.

Any views or advice welcome.
Thank you for reading.

Errata

It's difficult because your OH can't prove that he was wearing reg footwear, and the employer can't prove that he wasn't, although the report in the company accident book may shed some light on this it might not be very likely. Does your OH have a copy of the accident report?

swingaloo

Thank you for the reply.

Its awkward because the whole thing was handled badly to start with. The manager who had taken over took an instant dislike to a lot of the employees at the depot. (Oh being one of them) When the accident happened the manger refused to do an accident report, although oh told him it was a legal requirement he siaid that he ' only had to fill it an accident report if he considered it to be an accident and he said he refused to accept it as an accident'. Talk about making your own rules up!!!!. Oh had to report it to the head office and the DSS etc himself and finally the manager reluctantly made an accident report 5 months after it actually happened. There was no investigation as there should have been and no pictures taken etc. When the rerort was finally done oh was not present and was handed a copy 7 months after the accident which he filed away without taking too much notice of it. At that time he was still employed on 'light duties' and expected to recover enough to resume normal work in time so there was no thought about claiming then. He didnt really think about the report being that important as he didnt think he would be out of work.

On the form the manager has written NO in the box asking if regulation footwear was being worn bt again I think this is a cover up. He also wrote to the solicitor and said that oh was noticed to 'not be wearing regulation footwear the day before the accident'. This is also total rubbish as he wasnt working for 4 days previous to the accident. Also if he had been seen wearing non regulation footwear he would have been sent home. In all honesty he has never ever worn anything but regulation uniform and footwear. On the day in question he was working alonside another employee as they had car shared and after the fall the other employee passed a comment about it being a good job he had the correct boots. However now, nearly 19 months down the line my oh contacted him and he said that even though he remembers making the comment he is reluctant to make a statement to that effect because he says he "still needs to work there and they will be gunning for him if he gets involved" sa

meritaten

okay - I used to work for a company who loved these sorts of claims, as a canvasser. I have NO legal training ok?
your solicitor is urging you to accept 50/50. you dont want to do this as you feel your OH was in no way at fault.
my best advice would be to phone a good accident claims firm and tell them what you have told us. I suspect that they would advise you to retain them and let them fight this claim for you.
Now, most of them work on a No Win No Fee basis and 'you get 100% of the compensation'.
in this case you would have to wiegh up
do you stay with the union solicitor because
its getting paid for by the union and he may be giving you the best advice he can
or
go with a No Win No Fee firm
because they
will desperately want to win this case to earn their fee
but they may well tell you 'what you want to hear'

You would be perfectly within your rights to change solicitors if you feel the current one is NOT giving you the best advice.

I cannot advise on the outcome beyond saying that the firm I worked for passed the claims on to some very reputable solicitors and they fought tooth and nail for their clients.
I would have said this was a case my boss would have loved!

Errata

Looks like you need a copy of the company policy which states employees will not be allowed to work in non-regulation footwear, and what happens if they attempt to do so and any prior examples of employees being 'sent home' in this event.

viktory

Sadly, you and your OH have made some real schoolboy errors that might well come back to bite you on the bum. Your OH should have written his own report at the time of the incident and his own photos. He should also have read the damn accident report and had the errors corrected! It now looks like you and your OH are trying to cover up the truth. Again, it would have been prudent to get the employee present at the time to sign and date a statement - I am not at all surprised he is refusing now. Still, hindsight and all that. To be honest, given all the above, I would accept 50/50 and chalk it up to experience.

swingaloo

We did ring one of those that advertise on the TV just before the union put him onto this solicitor but they didnt seem that interested. They asked a few questions and sid they would get back to him and when they rang back they just said they didnt feel it was something they wanted to take. They said that in order to make a claim they had to prove liability ie the council or the like of, and as they couldnt be sure to get a sucessful claim against his employer they felt it was not a case they wanted to take.

Thats what I cant understand though. You see these ads on the TV 'I was given the wrong ladder' etc and whilst Im all for accepting that we all have a personal resposibility the fact remains that my oh was doing his job when he fell. The weather was atrocious (icy and snowing). He dint have a choice. He wouldnt have been where he was if he had not been doing his job and now his life is affected so much as a result of the accident.

One of the things they put in the letter to the solicitor was that 'If he felt the conditions were too bad to do his duty then he should have refused and gone home'.
Thats just so unrealistic and another way of trying to put the responsibility for what happened onto him. If he had done that and refused to do his job he would have got a warning.

meritaten

swingaloo wrote: »

We did ring one of those that advertise on the TV just before the union put him onto this solicitor but they didnt seem that interested. They asked a few questions and sid they would get back to him and when they rang back they just said they didnt feel it was something they wanted to take. They said that in order to make a claim they had to prove liability ie the council or the like of, and as they couldnt be sure to get a sucessful claim against his employer they felt it was not a case they wanted to take.

Thats what I cant understand though. You see these ads on the TV 'I was given the wrong ladder' etc and whilst Im all for accepting that we all have a personal resposibility the fact remains that my oh was doing his job when he fell. The weather was atrocious (icy and snowing). He dint have a choice. He wouldnt have been where he was if he had not been doing his job and now his life is affected so much as a result of the accident.

One of the things they put in the letter to the solicitor was that 'If he felt the conditions were too bad to do his duty then he should have refused and gone home'.
Thats just so unrealistic and another way of trying to put the responsibility for what happened onto him. If he had done that and refused to do his job he would have got a warning.

Yes and this is why they didnt take it on. YOU are ultimately responsible for YOUR safety at work. If you identify a safety issue then go ahead and do the job anyway - then YOU are deemed responsible for the outcome. I am so sorry your OH was injured - but better a warning than an injury.

swingaloo

Thank you Errata.

The company booklet just says that you 'must always wear the regulation footwear or the company will not accept responsibility for any accident.

Another annoying thing though, when he had his initial interview for being off work after the accident they went through everything that had happened and there was no mention of him wearing the incorrect footwear. Its just something they have decided to use months later to get out of admitting liability.

swingaloo

Meritaten, I know we all have a personal responsibility but we are talking about a company that were sending hundreds of men and women out on delivery that day. None of them had a choice in it unless they were willing to get disciplined and none of them, my oh included, expected to have an accident.

If it were as simple as saying 'Oh Im not doing it today' every time the weather gets bad the counrty would come to a standstill.

Darlyd

Perhaps you could ring/email all the "no win no fee" claim companies. ;-) Some one is bound to help.