Compensation for injury at work?

[TittyBojangles]

Just lost my post with MN being offline! Here's attempt number 2...

My DH broke 2 fingers (not badly) last week at work. It was an accident, noones fault/negligence etc. He was carrying something heavy with his manager, it slipped and crushed his fingers.

He thinks he might be able to claim. I disagree, I can't see how he has a claim and don't think he should anyway (just hate this compo culture thing).

Anyway, he has asked me to ask the MN jury whether he should/could and if so then how much compensation is likely. He has no loss of earnings and we have spent nothing except for one trip to hospital.

Please don't shoot me, like I said I don't think he should claim.

Don't you have to prove negligence i.e. that something which should have been in place wasn't? or that the firm in some way failed in their duty of care?

I am by no means an expert, but if he picked up a box of his own volition and then it slipped by accident then how can the employer be at fault?...not shooting you down and hurrah for ppffffting at the excesses of the compensation culture!

If no one's fault then who exactly is he expecting will pay the compensation.....??

However, maybe it was someone's fault. Heavy lifting is a manual handling task and is covered by health and safety regulations - could a lifting trolley been used instead? How heavy are we talking?

But if no negligence/fault then no claim... obviously.

Exactly my point, no fault = no claim. I think he thinks he might have a claim simply because this injury happened to him at work.

It was a heavy lump of concrete 80-100kg (ish). Lifted by 2 people (one being his manager), wearing gloves etc. Lifted in the normal course of business - onto a customers vehicle.

Injured at work does most certainly not = compensation... Shocking that he thinks this is the case!!!

This has got me pondering whether or not MN HQ will have to answer financially for the numb bum I now have after sitting at my laptop for an hour.
Now where was that Injury Lawyers advert again?
Hmmm.........

This depends mainly on his employer's approach to dealing with claims (along with that of their Employer's Liability insurer).

Some employers settle most claims early, because it's cheaper than fighting them in the long run. In this case, maybe £2k-ish?

Others fight every claim on principle, in order not to encourage a claims culture. In this case, your DH would have to demonstrate that the employer - and in this case, probably his manager - was negligent in asking/ allowing him to lift the block in the way he did, or alternatively that a "suitable and sufficient" risk assessment (under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations) was required and was not carried out, or that control measures were not implemented. (BTW - from memory and without checking, I think the risk filters attached to these regulations would indicate that the lift you describe should have been subject to risk assessment, at least in generic terms, beforehand, and I would suggest that some kind of injury was reasonably foreseeable. No written record of risk assessment/ no written record of training to do this type of lift = easy claim.)

He may well know the claims culture in his own workplace and will therefore have a feel for which one is more likely to describe his own organisation.

Having said all that - full recovery, no sick leave, no actual financial loss - it's not worth the aggravation, IMHO!

God, I'm boring sometimes....

Timetosmile... I'm thinking of submitting a claim for repetitive strain and poor eyesight due to too many hours spent mnetting! Wonder if we will get anywhere?

Spring... You aren't boring, very helpful. I will tell him the mn jury agree with me... Yey!

I do think I might have misrepresented dh as a bit of a moneygrabber, it was a conversation with his colleagues that set him off, He would usually agree with me on this.