A guide to warehouse accident claims

Warehouses should not be hazardous places to work; however, we know that accidents which could have been prevented do occur and the injuries sustained can be serious and have long-term effects. Digby Brown has years of experience helping employees who have sustained an injury during the course of their work – it shouldn’t happen, but it does.

Your employment status should not be affected if you bring a claim against your organisation or company. Your employer cannot sack you just because you are seeking financial compensation. Every business should have employer’s liability insurance which protects the company for when an accident happens, so it is the insurance policy not the business who will pay any damages you receive.

Sometimes it isn’t the employer who would be aware of the potential danger - a defective machine which has not been serviced properly, a colleague who isn’t following procedure and has left equipment lying about or racking which has become unstable overtime. Whatever the situation, if the injury has been because of a failing due to lack of maintenance, protective equipment, proper training or caused by someone else’s fault - then you have the right to make a claim.

The likelihood is that you aren’t able to work for a period of time and that has huge financial implications for you and your family.

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Your rights with warehouse accidents

Manual handling injuries are common in a warehouse environment either because of a single incident or the result of muscle damage caused by repeatedly lifting heavy or awkward packages over time. Insufficient training on how to lift objects without damaging your back is usually the cause and a compensation claim can therefore be brought against your employer.

The Health and Safety Executive confirms more than a quarter of accidents at work are associated with manual handling. But workplaces are now required to avoid hazardous manual handling operations where possible. The Manual Handling Operations Regulation 1992 and Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 are in place for this very reason.

The Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998 set out health and safety requirements applicable to the use of lifting equipment. This includes ensuring equipment used for lifting is fit for purpose, clearly marked and (for many employers) subject to scheduled 'thorough examination'.

Helping with your warehouse injury claim

The law is clear – if you have been hurt when at work because someone else was negligent then you are entitled to compensation. At Digby Brown your specialist warehouse accident solicitor will fully investigate your accident to ensure that the correct value of these losses is fully recognised and recovered.

Our job is to fully investigate what happened with your assistance to establish exactly what injuries you have sustained and what the short and long-term implications of those injuries are so as to fully calculate your loss.

If necessary, we will employ a range of medical and industry experts to build a full picture of the implications and consequences of the accident.  We will deal with your employer’s insurance legal provider to intimate the claim, discuss the case and agree settlement. If we cannot agree either who was at fault or the fair amount of compensation then we will consider taking the case to court.

We use our funding company Compensate to do this. Everything we do is on a “no win no fee” basis.  We will not ask you to pay for anything during the process and only on successful outcome will an agreed, at the start, percentage of your award be paid to Digby Brown (this will be no more than 20% including VAT). Remember you will never be asked to pay for anything during the case and if unsuccessful we carry all the costs, you pay nothing.

Our client, Mr Forbes, was left unable to work after suffering permanent damage to both legs when steel fell from a pallet while he unloaded a truck. His solicitor found the accident could have been prevented if an appropriate risk assessment and plan had been in place. Despite working there for 20 years, his employer offered a meagre sum of compensation - but after coming to Digby Brown, it settled for three times more the original offer.

Why choose Digby Brown for your warehouse compensation claim?

As Scotland’s largest specialist personal injury firm, we have the means to help you locally from any of our seven offices across the country. Our reputation is known throughout the legal community as we recover more than £100 million every year for clients.

Our expertise has been consistently recognised and top ranked by Chambers & Partners and The Legal 500 – the main guides for accessing legal support – for more than a decade. We have won many awards in Scotland for our Legal expertise and you can read more about why you would choose Digby Brown to help with your workplace injury claim on our Credentials page.

Holding employers accountable via civil claims helps improve safety standards across industries but more importantly it helps people and families get their lives back on track.

If you would like to talk to someone, simply call us on the number below, we are open 8.00am to 8.30pm Monday to Friday and 12 – 4pm at the weekends, or simply fill in an enquiry form and someone can call you back at your convenience.

Because it matters...