Personal Injury Claims Bristol Blog

A grocery manager who claims that heavy lifting caused him to suffer a back injury is taking Tesco Stores to the High Court. 36-year-old Damian MacLean accused the company of negligence, with the belief that his back injury was caused by lifting heavy delivery cages in the store.

A welder who was hit by a falling metal frame has sued a Downham firm for up to £200,000 in compensation. 40-year-old Scott Fewster had been working as a welder at a skateboard ramp manufacturers, called Highline Extreme, when a metal frame fell on him. He said that the metal frame pushed him back onto a concrete floor, which left him with severely debilitating injuries.

A chemical leak has left a man in hospital.  A delivery driver phoned firefighters yesterday morning with the fear that there was a chemical leak inside his vehicle. The van had been delivering a heavy duty acidic de-scaler to a house in Ashbury, near Faringdon, when the incident happened. It is believed that the dangerous chemical leaked out through the packaging and into the delivery van, affecting the driver.

The widow of a former dockyard worker who died as a result of asbestos exposure has appealed for information surrounding her late husband’s working conditions.  Kenneth Strong died at age 80 after battling mesothelioma, a cancer caused by asbestos exposure, for five-months. His wife Jean is appealing to her husband’s colleagues to assist in an investigation into the working conditions of the dockyard.

The mother of a young man who had dreamed of a career in the Royal Marines since a young age is suing them for over £1million after her son fell during a dangerous training exercise.  The exercise required the men to complete a high-level assault course called ‘Tarzan’.  When 19-year-old James Cobby reached the stage known as ‘Jacob’s Ladder’, he fell 7m hitting a high-tension cable on the way down.

New figures have revealed that Police officers receive an estimated £3million in compensation for minor injures every year.  Injuries in the last year ranged from officers falling off bikes to being bitten by dogs.  According to legislation, however, Police forces are only supposed to pay damages if more could have been done to prevent the accident from happening in the first place.  This would involve ensuring that the work environment was safe and that protective clothing suited the nature of the work.

A member of staff at an industrial estate has been taken to court after one of his colleagues sustained serious burns from a plastic bottle filled with sulphuric acid.  Mark Mellard (46) had picked up the plastic bottle on his way out of work, which had been left unattended by the sink, before he felt it burning on his leg.  He disposed of the bottle and washed his leg with cold water. The severity of the burn damaged Mr Mellard’s nerve endings so he proceeded to walk his dog before going to hospital. 

New figures have revealed that the West Country is the most dangerous place to work in Britain.  A report has found that over 6,500 people were injured and 12 people died while working in the South West of England between 2012 and 2013 – a figure higher than anywhere else in the UK.

Newly released figures have revealed that school staff have been awarded a record of £26 million in compensation.  One teacher received £110,000 after tripping on a pothole in the driveway of the school she worked at. She is just one of the hundreds of school staff who have claimed for a work-related injury. 

Recently released figures have revealed that Thanet Council has paid out around £150,000 in compensation to injury claimants in the past five years alone.  The figures were attained as a result of a Freedom of Information Act request made by the Gazette newspaper, finding that a total of 70 claims had been made against the council in the last five years.  In only the past year, a total of 13 claims were made, with a total of £28,298 being paid-out 

Ten years after an accident that took the lives of four men working on a railway line, a rail union has called for the safety measures of workers to be improved. The Rail, Maritime & Transport (RMT) said that not enough improvements have been made to protect workers following the accident that happened a decade ago, and that action must be taken now to prevent the accident from repeating itself. The men were killed by a runaway 16-tonne wagon on the West Coast Main Line at Tebay.

Figures released yesterday have revealed that hundreds of primary school pupils are receiving record payouts.  The last five years has seen the funding of £3.3million worth of compensation in school injury claims, with injuries spanning from slipping on wet floors to hitting heads on goalposts.  Even though calculations lead to the figure of £3.3million, experts believe that the true cost is much more.

A Portsmouth steel manufacturer was sentenced earlier this week, after one of its workers suffered life-changing injuries when he was hit by a falling 1.4 tonne steel beam.

A self-employed roofer has been fined after an employee suffered major injuries falling through a skylight at a Nuneaton industrial estate.

A blueprint for addressing the terrible toll of death, injury and ill health in the waste and recycling industry is to be published following a landmark summit.

A Gloucestershire paper producer has been fined after an employee's hand was crushed in an unguarded machine as he tried to clean it.

Government plans to change workplace law are a license for rogue bosses to let safety standards fall, claim the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL).