Bruised Eye Workplace Claim Offer of Settlement

[SAPFO]

Had a tool slide into a dangerous area and snag on my hoist at work. It should firstly not have slid into the area, and secondly it swung and gave me a black eye. As it was attached to a tool balancer, it should have pulled it about head height so as not to swing into my face. Black eye, few weeks recover.

Anyway, the Union appointed solicitor said it’s valued at £1300, and to take anything over £1000. They typically came back with an offer of £1000. She’s to get me to take it. I’m happy to negotiate, so said no, tell them £2500.

Its the 2nd time this ha injured someone in this manor.

Can I have some opinions please?

[des8]

Guidelines for the Assessment for General Damages in Personal Injuries (as used by the courts) :Transient eye injuries: £1,620 - £2,900

I'd certainly push for more than what is on offer, especially as this should be a wake up call to your employers to up their game on H&S

[SAPFO]

Thank you for the reply. I replied £2500. Colleagues tell me the from experience, the union solicitor always is willing to accept a lowball offer.



Below is the response I received

“As previously advised in our letter dated 12^th December 2017, we valued your claim at no more than £1,300 and for you to accept a minimum of £1,000. The claim is valued on the injury that you sustained and the length of time it took you to recover from that injury with your out of pocket expenses.

The medical expert confirmed that you sustained a black eye and that this took 2 to 3 weeks to settle and you have confirmed that you did not have any out of pocket expenses as you were not absent from work.

To value a claim we use the Judicial College Guidelines and previous case law. For a black eye with a recovery period of 2 to 3 weeks you can expect to achieve between £600 - £1200. This is further supported in the case of ROBERTS v WREXHAM CITY COUNCIL, in which a Judge awarded damages of £1088.60. The injury in this case also consisted of a laceration and a momentary loss of consciousness.“

[Peridot]

Hi SAPFO,
Sorry to hear about your black eye. Glad it recovered with no issues.
The value applied to any injury is guided by a number of factors. The type and duration of the injury, whether there are likely to be any longer term issues and whether any treatments are needed. Generally medical evidence would be obtained to assess the injury itself before looking at previous case law and the Judicial Studies Board Guidelines which provide a sliding scale for a range of injuries. If you didn't attend the GP or A&E this may not be necessary. In those circumstances it may be that a token offer to settle is made to prevent increasing any costs as from the details of the accident it would appear that your employer has been negligent in its processes.

Any damages you receive relating to the injury itself are known as general damages. There are other damages that could be claimed such as loss of earnings, cost of treatment and medications etc and these are known as special damages.

As mentioned above, in the usual course of a personal injury claim it would be necessary to obtain medical evidence in order to value the general damages. Any special damages would have to be evidenced by receipts before an agreed sum could be reached.

However, in the case of minor injuries such as this, which recovered quickly a view can be taken whether to make an offer without the necessity to obtain medical evidence and the cost that entails. If the Union solicitors acting for you have suggested £1,300, I suspect this is on the basis of the JSB figures, so to ask for £2,500 would be pushing it. Check how your solicitor has arrived at the figure they suggest. It does not seem an unreasonable amount for a minor injury.

I appreciate this type of injury has happened previously but that is not part of the claim for damages. It may be helpful to think of this as a separate issue to your claim for damages, which needs addressing in a different way. Just because an incident has occurred previously does not increase any damages you may be entitled to. It does however go some way to demonstrating that the employer may have breached their duty of care by not ensuring a safe working practice.

Has the problem with the tool been reported to health and safety? Hopefully they will ensure there is some safety feature in place in future to prevent this happening again. If no action has been taken then I would recommend reporting it regularly in the hope it is dealt with and prevents any further incidents occurring.

[SAPFO]

Thank you. I attended works OH Dept at the time, and also a medical assessment by an independent as part of the claim. I also provided picture evidence, which was date stamped.

The tools are now much higher. The balances are supposed to be regularly serviced, I think fortnightly. I had complained prior, it was then that the tool was set to its horizontal ‘Home’ position, which failed. I also had our in house H&S guy come and have a look. He reckoned it was ‘fine’. He is just an only union rep going through the motions. Nobody on the floor has respect for him as he’s useless.

[des8]

The figures I quoted came from the 14th Edition of the Judicial College guidelines (issued Sept 2017).
I wonder which issue the solicitor was looking at, and when was that court case (five years ago???, and which court?

Good luck

[Peridot]

Hi again,
It is always worth pushing for a higher settlement. You will probably find that it settles somewhere between the two. It isn't an exact science unfortunately. As myself and Des8 have mentioned the JSB's and previous case law on similar injuries will be the main determining factors here.
The issues that have previously been flagged with the working practices would go to the decision of whether the employer is liable which in this instance they have evidently admitted liability sensibly. It won't have any bearing on the amount of damages though.
Hopefully the posts have helped you get a sense of how the damages are calculated and where to go from here.

[Peridot]

Sorry just another point, I wouldn't necessarily class a black eye as a transient eye injury, where the injury may be just some bruising. Of course I haven't seen the medical evidence here. I would expect the potential damages for just bruising, if that was the case, to definitely be at the lower end of any JSB figures quoted.
Do negotiate, but just be aware that the medical evidence will be key here. Do ask questions of the solicitor as to how they have come to the value they placed on the injury and be guided by them.

[SAPFO]

Thanks. She has gone quiet since I mentioned DES8 last post.

I have a few other live claims at the minute with the same firm. My intention is to highlight the H&S failings on my old job. I was tempted to take my other claims elsewhere as I’m sceptical of anything to do with our union as they’ve let me down so many times.

[Peridot]

Hi again,
The only thing I'd say about instructing other solicitors rather than your union, is that other solicitors are under an obligation to check what funding is available to individuals, even if they offer No win no fee (conditional fee) agreements. They may be reluctant to take the claims on if you have union funding available.
Do make sure any H&S issues are reported and if nothing is done, maybe consider contacting HSE for further information relating to the failing. This is of course unrelated to any potential personal injury claim, just trying to get your employers to fulfil their obligations from and H&S perspective so hopefully preventing issues arising for other employees.

[SAPFO]

They seem happy to take the one off injury, but reluctant to take the RSI, and the work related stress claims I’ve opened. I understand they are harder to prove, but I’m confident in both. One the ergonomic risk assessment says basically suggests I’m too tall for the job. I was never shown this, one recently discovered it. Now I’ve got bilateral shoulder impingement, I believe from that job.


The other is is a manager knowingly refused me a holiday, and then gave it to another colleague. The colleague is my witness. I placed a grievance in way back in July 2016, and it’s still ‘ongoing’, causing me a lot of stress.

Maybe I will open a thread for each of the others. Before anyone asks, a manager caused me a load of personal problems, so during time away I got hold of my medical records at work and done what I’m entitled to and claim.

[Peridot]

Hi,
RSI and work related stress are as you point out, a lot more difficult to prove. It will very much come down to the medical evidence demonstrating that the most likely cause of the injury is due to work activities not other unrelated issues. Pre existing conditions may also come into play, whether your employer knew about any issues you experienced, as well as the usual risk assessments etc being in place. Have they admitted liability yet or are you still waiting a decision on this. If they have admitted liability then the next issue is the medical evidence supporting your claim that the repetitive actions caused the injury, the same goes for the stress claim too.
It will come down to what an employer could reasonably have been expected to do to protect their employees from injury.
Glad you've got lawyers acting on your behalf in respect of these two further issues.
It may be an idea to separate the claims out if you want any further guidance on them in the future. You can flesh out the circumstances and give further detail of what happened.
The grievance issue is an employment issue so should be separated from the personal injury claims too, if needs be.

[SAPFO]

You have previously provided us with authority to put forward an offer of £1300, we cannot therefore just increase the offer as you have accepted our previous advice.

The category for transient eye injuries is for damage to the surface of the eyeball, the eye itself and eye socket not only the soft tissue around the eye. Therefore unfortunately, a medical prognosis of a black eye / soft tissue injury does not fall into this category.

All personal injury claims are settled in the civil courts so it was settled in the County Court and that particular case was from 2005. The most recent is from 2010, K –v- Ethel Austin Ltd which settled for £1241 but the injuries included blistering under the eyelid, not only soft tissue injury.

We therefore re-iterate our advice to you which is for you to accept the offer of £1,000.




Thoughts?

[Peridot]

Hi Sapfo,
I think this reiterates the point I made in my post at #8 concerning the issue of what would be classed as a transient eye injury as opposed to bruising around the eye. It is of course a decision for you whether you accept or not, but bearing in mind the points they have made I would suggest this offer is worth serious consideration. Probably not what you wanted to hear, I'm afraid.

[SAPFO]

Should suggest I will accept an offer of £1300 which they valued it at?