The main regulations that govern these types of claims are the Manual Handling Regulations 1992 as this type of task is normally classed as a manual handling activity. Under these regulations, the employer’s duty is to avoid manual handling as far as is reasonably practicable if there is a possibility of injury. If this cannot be done then they must reduce the risk of injury as far as is reasonably practicable (source).
Under regulation 4(1) this aim is addressed as it states what should be done as follows:
- Avoid hazardous manual handling operations so far as reasonably practicable;
- Assess any hazardous manual handling operations that cannot be avoided;
- Reduce the risk of injury so far as reasonably practicable.
Therefore if you do not believe that this kind of “risk assessment” has been carried out by your employer, it is likely that you will have a claim for compensation. An example may be: a policy that states boxes are not to be stacked in a certain way or loaded with a certain amount of weight. Mechanical assistance may be bought to remove the need for manual handling of heavy items.
Of course, even with policies in place often it may be the case that other employees have breached these policies and caused boxes to be over-stacked. In this case, your employer can still be liable under the principle of Vicarious Liability. This means that your employer is responsible for the actions of its employees and therefore if one of them does something wrong and this causes you an accident, the “blame” lies with them. This is one of the reasons why employers are so scrupulous about training and ensuring employees do what they are told!
Common injuries caused by these types of accidents are muscle tearing in shoulders and arms, prolapsed discs and even hernias (please note that in this case, it has to be shown that it was this particular task that caused the hernia and this can be shown if the pain is felt straight away).
A further point to make is that if you were aware the boxes were over-stacked and yet still chose to do the task without asking for, or refusing, assistance, there may be contributory negligence alleged by the other side. For example: they may say you were 10% at fault and therefore your damages would reflect this and be reduced by 10%.
So if you have suffered an injury arising from boxes that have been over stacked the best thing to do is contact a solicitor direct to discuss your claim. As a genuine law firm we know what is needed to ensure your claim has the best chance of success and we also offer up to 100% compensation on these types of cases!