Rogers & Norton Solicitors have specialist lawyers who are experienced in handling claims arising from the work place. Claims are handled from those of the utmost severity to the more minor injuries that are all handled with the same level of care and expertise that your personal injury claim deserves.

Your employer owes you a high duty of care in ensuring that you are safe at work.

The law relating to compensation claims and the criminal law, enforced by the Health & Safety Executive, regard your safety at work as of paramount importance. Employers are legally obliged to provide you with safe equipment, machinery, plant and provide you with appropriate and adequately trained co workers. Where appropriate your employers are required to provide you with suitable protective equipment and if you suffer an accident at work as a lack of a protective guard, flying debris, broken or defective equipment, an electric shock or as a result of a fall in the work place then you may be entitled to claim damages.

Your employer must ensure that the place where you carry out your work is as safe as possible. Your employer must ensure that the place where you work and the premises where you are employed are safe for their employees. The floors and access routes of your place of work, which may be an office, shop or factory, must not be wet, cluttered with rubbish or have exposed cables upon which you may slip or trip. Employers are also responsible for ensuring that the premises where you work, to include the outside areas such as car parks, pathways leading to the premises are safe and well lit and to also ensure that the premises is suitably heated and ventilated.

Accidents at work can occur in a variety of places. Construction sites are inevitably dangerous places and the Health & Safety Executive work hard to minimise death and personal injuries suffered in the construction industry. Figures from the Health & Safety Executive indicate that over the last 25 years, 2800 have been killed on construction sites and that between April 2001 and March 2002 many workers have died and thousands have been injured. The main causes of injury include overturning vehicles, collapsing structures, unsafe scaffolding, slipping on wet and dangerous surfaces, fragile roofs, falling through fragile roofs and roof lights and crushing injuries. In particular, but not exclusively, in the construction industry employers are obliged to safeguard against exposure to asbestos and these duties have been in place for many years. Many victims are now only realising the effects of their exposure many years ago. Although the exposure was many years ago, this does not act as a bar against a claim for exposure to harmful substances such as asbestos.

Examples of accidents at work which have been successfully pursued include:

The most common injury which effects the British workforce each year are muscular injuries to the neck, back and shoulders. The main tasks that create such an injury are:

• Make a Claim
• Funding your claim
• Testimonials
• Accidents & Personal Injury
• Law Society Personal Injury Panel
• Road traffic accidents
• Slipping and tripping
• Injuries abroad
• CICA (Criminal Injuries)
• Defective products
• Head/brain injuries
• Spinal injuries
• Industrial disease