Injury claim but who is liable??

[swiss20001]

Hi everyone,

Thank you for letting me post on this site. I suffered a work related injury last September, a broken ankle getting out of my high sided work vehicle and putting my foot in a pot hole. I reported the accident at work and notified my Union who put me in touch with their free legal team. When I got home I reported the stretch of road to the local city council as it's in a really bad state if disrepair, I think the moon in smoother. The city council replied that the road was nothing to do with them and told me to contact the county council, long story short it's nothing to do with the county council either and my legal team can't find who owns it so have filed a claim against the city council anyway, so I'm not expecting that to bear any fruit.

I'm pretty sure the road is a private road but what happens in this situation, if you can't find a liable party? It has been suggested to me that I take legal action against my employer as I was carrying out my duties when I was injured, is that a possibility? I am on a zero hours contract and as you can imagine 4 months of SSP has really impacted me financially, any advice gratefully received.

Thank you.

[swiss20001]

If I need to provide any more detail, please let me know?

[des8]

Have you tried tracing ownership via Land Registry?
they have a map search facility: https://www.landregistry-uk.com/map-search

[swiss20001]

Hello and thank you for your reply, yes my legal team have done that and say it is still unclear who owns the land, possibly council, county or a private owner or none of them. If the land is unregistered what are my options?

[des8]

So it is an unadopted, unregistered road.
If this road serves a "relatively" new estate (e.g post WWII) it might be worth trawling through planning papers to see who the developer was.
You might obtain a pointer from there, and then follow the paper trial.

Otherwise I'm afraid i'm out of ideas

[swiss20001]

It's an access road that goes behind some shops with flats above, I'll suggest that to my legal team though thank you. Do you not think looking at my employer as being responsible is a possibility?

[des8]

It may be possible to hold the frontagers (the owners of premises fronting the road) responsible for the surface condition.

Sec 230 of the Highways Act 1980 allows the street works authority to enforce the frontagers to repair a private road to avoid danger to traffic


I don't see how your employer could be liable, unless there was a fault with your vehicle, but tagging ULA (our employment specialist) for her view

[atticus]

Has your union legal team stopped advising you?

[ULA]

It seems that the injury was caused by the placement of your foot in a pot hole. I am not sure that it can be considered a fault of your employer for which a claim could be made against the employer's liability insurance.

[swiss20001]

It may be possible to hold the frontagers (the owners of premises fronting the road) responsible for the surface condition.

Sec 230 of the Highways Act 1980 allows the street works authority to enforce the frontagers to repair a private road to avoid danger to traffic


I don't see how your employer could be liable, unless there was a fault with your vehicle, but tagging ULA (our employment specialist) for her view

I'm a refuse collector and have to get out of the cab where the driver stops, I was thinking maybe the area chosen wasn't a safe place to alight... Thanks for the info, I will look into it!

[swiss20001]

Has your union legal team stopped advising you?

I am very appreciative of the free legal help my team are giving me but at the same time I have a feeling that they are low paid and probably students getting legal experience, they have already made two mistakes that set things back months, and like I said, the local council have already said the road is nothing to do with them but the team have filed against them. I just wanted to see if there was anything I could do to help them in the right direction.

[swiss20001]

It seems that the injury was caused by the placement of your foot in a pot hole. I am not sure that it can be considered a fault of your employer for which a claim could be made against the employer's liability insurance.

Like I said previously, I alight where my driver tells me to, if that's on a piece of ground that's not suitable, I was wondering who is at fault.

[ULA]

From what you have posted and in responding to the tag for my view by des8 then I do not think this can be your employer at fault so no scope to claim that they were liable.

[swiss20001]

From what you have posted and in responding to the tag for my view by des8 then I do not think this can be your employer at fault so no scope to claim that they were liable.

Thank you I appreciate your time.

[swiss20001]

@ULA
I have an update, the date for the respondent to respond came and went, I emailed my law team, no response, standard, so I called them and got the explanation that they are going to litigate against multiple parties and keep doing it until one responds, the analogy I was given was it's like throwing mud against a wall until some sticks, now I have zero legal experience, but is this standard legal practice? I was told just to be patient and let the process continue...