You’re at work, when suddenly you are knocked in to or hit by a forklift truck, or perhaps your foot is run over, and you end up injured as a result – what are your legal rights?
In these kinds of scenarios, it’s normally a colleague that is at fault for the accident. But suing your workmate isn’t exactly easy to do, and I’m sure you probably don’t want to make a claim against them anyway; so can you make a claim for personal injury compensation from your employer instead?
The Law
The term vicarious liability means that an employer of an employee can be responsible for the employee’s negligent actions. Even if the driver that hit you is fully qualified and knows all the best health and safety rules and procedures, that’s no defence. Their negligence falls on to the responsibility of the employer.
So to put it simply, you have a very good chance of winning the claim if we can prove that the employer is vicariously liable for the negligence of the employee. This way, you can make the claim normally through your employers insurance who are there to cover such scenarios.
So don’t worry about it being an employee at fault – the employer is ultimately liable. If you’re contracted and the person that hit you doesn’t work for your employer, you don’t need to worry because their own employer can be vicariously liable in the same way yours can.
There are other things we can look at as well when it comes to this type of claim. It may not be the case that the employee has been negligent. What if:
- The forklift truck was defective meaning it couldn’t stop or turned when using it, causing the accident
- There are no separate designated traffic routes for forklifts and pedestrians, meaning accidents are likely
- You are asked to perform a task involving being close to a forklift which was not risk assessed to prevent such accidents
For the forklift being defective, we can allege that the employer is in breach of Regulation 6 of The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations; which states employers shall ensure that all work equipment is in suitable working order and in good repair. When it comes to traffic routes and risk assessments, we can look at regulations like The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations which can address such issues.
There are loads of workplace regulations, so proving that your employer is in breach of them is not too hard sometimes.
If you would like to know if you can make a workplace accident claim with The Injury Lawyers, call our free helpline on 0800 634 75 75 for friendly legal advice. We’re a real law firm, so you don’t need to worry that we will palm you off elsewhere like many claims management companies and agencies do; which also means our advice is real legal advice too.
We offer No Win, No Fee guarantees and we can offer 100% compensation for many claims as well.