Most lawyers will take 25% – we don’t!
Whilst workplace compensation claims can often be fairly straightforward to resolve, manual handling claims can sometimes be the most difficult to succeed with. Whilst there are clear and plentiful regulations that cover manual handling practises in the workplace, people can end up easily injuring themselves by not following guidelines or in cases of genuine non-fault accidents.
So here’s some advice for you about manual handling claims and info about how we offer 100% compensation agreements for workplace personal injury compensation claims.
The Law
The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 in general states that the employer must, as far as is reasonably practicable, remove the need for manual handling in the workplace at all. However, where it cannot be avoided, the general provisions are that the employer should;
- Where able to do so, provide equipment to avoid or assist in manual handling – such as a trolley, or a stock cage perhaps.
- Ensure that any persons performing manual handling tasks are sufficiently and properly trained and supervised where necessary, and as such capable of lifting and carrying safely.
- Risk assess any activities to ensure there is sufficient means to perform the task – taking in to consideration things like the route and how many people are required.
- Ensure that employees do not exceed the maximum weight to carry and ensure the volumes of lifting and carrying is controlled to prevent repetitive injuries.
So, in essence, if an employer abides by the provisions they must do by law, they can defend a claim. Whether you can make a successful claim or not is down to proving that your employer has been negligent in the duty of care they have for you. To be negligent, they must have breached the law. So if the injury is caused because of poor or no training, a lack of (or sufficient) risk assessment, or the volumes and weights exceeding what is safe, that’s when you could claim.
But even where you are lifting correctly, you could twist or turn and stretch or tear muscle tissue very easily. Sometimes it can just happen. So it’s about proving that the employer has failed to take all reasonable steps to control manual handling in the workplace.
So how do I know if I have a claim?
The above is somewhat of a guideline, but the best thing to do is contact us and we can help and advise you. We’re a specialist personal injury law firm so we have plenty of proper and relevant experience to be able to assess the case and correctly advise you.
100% compensation?
First thing to let you know about is that most other law firms won’t offer you a 100% agreement. In fact, they’ll want to take up to a massive 25% cut from your payout. This is because of law changes last year where the government stopped lawyers being able to recover all of their fees from the other side. That, and given manual handling claims can sometimes be risky, means most lawyers won’t let you keep all of the claim.
But we still let our clients keep all 100% of their compensation payout as we just accept the legal fees we can still recover. We can do this because we have a lot of experience in dealing with manual handling claims and we take on and win a high volume of cases.
So to find out if you have a claim, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today.
