So, you’ve tripped over wires trailing across the floor of the office, fallen down the stairs leading from the office due to poor maintenance and to top off your day you’ve dropped in to a pot hole in the car park as you were leaving work and your tyre has burst!
‘What do I do’, I hear you cry! ‘Who do I need to report these problems to?’ ‘Who is liable and who can I claim from for the damage caused?’
Your first point of call is to report the incidents to your employer. The accidents have occurred on their property so make sure you document details of the incidents in the accident report book as soon as possible; this will ‘cover your back’ should you encounter any problems at a later stage!
Secondly, you need to establish ‘What is a workplace?’ Your need to establish that all of the incidents which have occurred relate directly to your employer and/or their property. You don’t want to ‘kick up a fuss’ and find out you should have directed your claim elsewhere, otherwise you’ll look a right plonker! Get clued up first!
The Workplace (Health, Safety & Welfare) Regulations 1992 define what a workplace is and the long and short of it is:
* ‘Any place a person has access to whilst at work’
* This includes any room, lobby, corridor, staircase, road or any other place used as a means of access to and from the place where you work.
* But don’t forget…any public road/building is exempt from the above!
Now you’ve established whether or not the incident occurred within the ‘workplace’; were you ‘working’ at the time the incident occurred?
This concept was easily defined in the case of Robb v Salami:
‘A person is at work for the whole of the time when he was in the course of his employment that includes rest periods and when travelling between periods of work.’
If you have suffered an Accident at Work then give The Injury Lawyers a call on 0800 634 7575 and we can talk through any doubts you may have. Remember, if you have injured yourself in an accident at work then you are entitled by law to make a claim for compensation. Your employer understands this, and will have taken out special insurance to cover any eventuality of an accident in the workplace, if and when it happens.