We take on a lot of work accident claims, and a lot of them relate to workers injured on the back of the lorry they are either driving or working from. I’ll give you a few examples and explain a little about how the law works when it comes to who is at fault and how to make a claim for personal injury compensation.
First and foremost, a lorry is classed as work equipment – and under the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations, your employer has a specific duty to inspect and maintain all work equipment to make sure no one comes to harm when using it. As it so happens, there are also some strict liability regulations that mean that if you are injured due to defective work equipment, you may have a very strong case. Say for example the shutters break and fall on you because a catch is broken, or they get stuck as you’re pushing them and cause you to badly jerk your back. Even if there was no way your employer could have stopped this from happening, you may still have a very good claim.
The lorry being defective aside, there are also plenty of other ways you can end up injured on the back of a lorry/wagon. Slipping is a common one – on steps leading up to an access way, or on the back of the lorry itself. You need to ask yourself the questions about how this was allowed to happen. Was a step slippery because there is little or no grip on it? Was the back of the wagon slippery because moisture had been allowed to accumulate, or was it due to ice if the truck is carrying frozen products? Is the floor not safe when wet? Are you provided with safety boots? Has your employer taken any steps to reduce the risk of slipping?
Ultimately if your employer fails to provide you with a safe system of work, and you end up injured as a result, you may well have a strong claim for compensation. Another common example is being injured because items haven’t been stacked properly on the lorry/wagon – perhaps you move a crate and another one falls because someone else has leaned it up against the crate you were moving, or perhaps there was no proper way of storing items that are liable to fall over – large rods being stood up on their end, for example. If a colleague hadn’t stacked it properly, your employer can be found vicariously liable and still be reasonable even if the colleague was largely to blame.
A lot of it comes down to the individual circumstances of the case but one thing you should think about is that we take on a lot of these types of claims. As expert personal injury lawyers, we deal only with claims for injury so our service and the way we work is fast, efficient, and bespoke to your individual needs.
In case you’re worried, your employer has a specific duty to look after your wellbeing at work, and they have to have a policy of employer’s liability insurance in place to cover you if you ever need to claim. You’re covered, you’re protected by law when making a claim, so all you need to do is give us a call on our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today!
