One of my first jobs was in a warehouse for a well known retail outlet. This was before my career in law, but looking back at it now, there were health and safety dangers all over the place! Around their busiest periods across Christmas, the stock room, which was relatively small, would be packed with toys and goods that would be cluttered all over the ground as well as on the shelves.
This poor health and safety practice could have paved the way for a winning claim if someone was to be injured. Cluttered workplaces can mean your employer is in breach of important health and safety legislation.
The Law
The law that generally applies in this kind of circumstance is The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations. To quote the relevant part of the regs:
“12. (3) So far as is reasonably practicable, every floor in a workplace and the surface of every traffic route in a workplace shall be kept free from obstructions and from any article or substance which may cause a person to slip, trip or fall.”
Reading the above makes it fairly obvious that there is a clear duty on employers to ensure that walkways do not end up getting cluttered with stock or other articles that pose a danger. So if stock or rubbish or anything else is allowed to accumulate and you slip or trip on something, you may have a winning claim for personal injury compensation.
Employers need to show that they take reasonable steps to prevent this kind of thing from happening. These can be:
- Systems of inspection and cleaning
- Dedicated stock store areas and separate walkways
- Receptacles like bins for in place for rubbish to be placed in
- Training in how to avoid such hazards
If your employer doesn’t have such things, or they ignore health and safety procedures like the above, you can make a claim. There are no excuses – just because its Christmas and more stock needs to be in storerooms doesn’t mean that employers can get away with ignoring the law like they did in my previous employment.
So if you slip, trip, or fall due to a cluttered workplace, you may have successful claim for personal injury compensation. Give us a call for free and friendly advice on 0800 634 75 75 and we’ll see if we can help you out. Workplace law can be strict, and there are a lot of rules that employers should abide by. As such, we’re normally happy to represent you on a No Win, No Fee basis for a workplace claim.
