The Workplace Regulations are there to protect workers from accidents at work.

If you have an accident but are not a ‘worker’ then you are not likely to be able to claim under The Workplace Regulations but that doesn’t mean you can’t claim in another way. It just means that you can’t benefit from this excellent bunch of regulations.

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If a cow starts charging at you, then you had better Moo-ve out of the way (sorry)! Ms Shirlie McKaskie didn’t though, and it might just lead to a very large compensation claim. Ms McKaskie suffered serious injury in 2003 as she was attacked by cows while walking across a field and is looking to claim up to £1 million after a judge ruled that farmer John Cameron was liable because he had not properly considered the risk of someone getting injured.

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A green light does not give a driver an absolute right to proceed to the junction.

A leading case illustrating this is Radburn V Kemp courts will look at the approach taken in this case when deciding liability. In this case a cyclist had proceeded through a green light and was in the middle of the junction, before the cyclist could take his exit, the lights changed and the lights in the opposite direction changed to green.

A driver coming from this direction drove through the green light and hit the cyclist waiting at the junction. The court held the driver 100% to blame even though he had a green light.
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A client recently asked, “Are all Accident at Work Claims Brought Against the Employer?” Good question but a better one would be: who owes you, as an employee, a duty of care? Firstly, the law, the part that’s going to show you’ve done your research and you know what you’re talking about.

Regulation 4 of The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 establishes who owes the duty of the care in the workplace.
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So your driving along, minding your own business when another car comes straight for you, ploughing into your car causing serious injuries – you then find out it was driven by someone who had earlier stolen it, its just not your day! Can you make a claim for your injuries and if so, who do you claim against?

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Claim Compensation for a Car Accident if Driver was at Fault and Drunk? The answer to that question is yes, you may still make a claim for compensation for the injuries you sustained however, there may be a deduction in the amount you are awarded. There are several things that will be taken into consideration when a judge is determining what compensation you should receive for injuries sustained following an accident whereby you were a passenger in a vehicle which was being driven by a person under the influence of alcohol…
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So, you’ve tripped over wires trailing across the floor of the office, fallen down the stairs leading from the office due to poor maintenance and to top off your day you’ve dropped in to a pot hole in the car park as you were leaving work and your tyre has burst!

‘What do I do’, I hear you cry! ‘Who do I need to report these problems to?’ ‘Who is liable and who can I claim from for the damage caused?’
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This week the Court of Appeal presided over the case of Baker and Others v Quantum Clothing and Others. This case concerned the liability of an employer in the knitting industry of Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire for employees’ loss of hearing caused by exposure to noise at a lower level than was previously recognised as giving rise to liability.
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Hair straightners have been labelled as partly to blame for an increased number of hospital admissions for children suffering burns. According to The Times, The Children Accident Prevention Trust have studied evidence that indicates that hospitals are seeing increased numbers of children who injury themselves with hot irons.

Hair straightners can reach temperatures of up to 220 Centigrade and remain hot for up to 8 minutes after being switched off and NHS statistics indicate 358 children under 5 needed hospital treatment for burns in 2006 -7.
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Estimated  figures published by the Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions in 2001 make for some grim reading, indicating that:

• Insurance evasion was running at between 4 and 6% of all  vehicles in use
• Between 1 million and 1 ¼ million of vehicles on the roads were uninsured
• Accidents for which uninsured drivers were responsible cost the motor insurance industry  over £400 million in 1999
• As a result each insured motorist ended up paying a further £15 to £30 premium on their policy

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