Non-unionised agency worker recovers £15,500 for eye injury

Jim was a precariously employed agency worker at a large technology support company in North London, and in September 2010 was assisting with a  relocation to Manchester by transferring equipment from shelves to pallets. There was no trade union in the warehouse and Jim’s employment contract was with an off site employment agency.

Jim had to pick up a box from a shelf above his head and place it on a wooden pallet. In the chaos of the move, the floor around the shelves in question was littered with other boxes and materials. Knowing that the box would not be heavy and with other boxes obstructing the area, he did not use a ladder.

 As Jim reached up and tilted the box down towards him, a circuit board weighing about 4 kilos slid off the top of the box and hit him hard in the right eye. His injury required surgery under general anaesthetic and his eyelid was repaired. 

Warehouses need high standards of health and safety

 Aside from a small scar, his cosmetic injuries were minor. However, he began to experience other symptoms. He experienced watering of the eye, which worsened when outside and was particularly troublesome upon waking. He also noticed some itchiness and aching in his right temporal area. Since such symptoms did not exist before his accident, and we instructed ophthalmic surgeons to take a closer look.

 

They found the cause of the watering to be either the eye drops prescribed to him at the time of his accident, or some indirect bony damage, not noticed at the time. Either way, since the symptoms appeared after the accident, the experts concluded that they were attributed to the trauma.

 Jim needed expensive remedial surgery which including numerous follow-ups, and which had a 90-95% chance of success.

The technology company although not his contractual employer were pursued because they had control of health and safety at the workplace. They admitted liability but argued Jim was 20% to blame because he did not use a ladder. Further they argued that cause of the ongoing watering eye symptoms were not clear.

They offered  settlement of £10,000, and refused to fund the  recommended surgery.

We advised Jim to counter offer £20,000 and eventually the case was settled for £15,500.00. In our estimation Jim could have recovered more had he persisted with the case but for his own reasons he decided to settle without issuing proceedings.

Had Jim been unrepresented we suspect he would either have been offered nothing or grossly under settled the claim, to the benefit of the insurers who were liable. The basis of liability was that the circuit board had been negligently left in a dangerous position on the shelf and it was foreseeable that if disturbed it would fall off the shelf and injure a worker.