Defective equipment
Advice
Under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations Act 1992, employers should ensure a supply of suitable and personal protective equipment (PPE) is provided to their employees. In addition to this, under the Employer’s Liability (Defective Equipment) Act 1969 employers are also strictly liable for any defective equipment that causes any type of injury.
Defective equipment includes any equipment that is not fit for its original purpose, is unsafe or suffers from a manufacturing defect.
Examples of defective equipment in the workplace:
- Machines that do not have guards to prevent fingers and hands from getting caught;
- Inappropriate repairs to equipment that render it unsafe; and
- Known faults left unrepaired / item relaced, such as a cracked hard-hat.
The first thing you should do after suffering an accident due to defective equipment is to seek medication attention and let your employer or whoever is in charge of the equipment of the situation. If possible, take photos of the defective equipment as there is a good chance it may get repaired between reporting the incident and an investigator having a chance to inspect it. You should always make an entry in the Accident Book (having one easily available is a legal requirement of all employers), again please take a photo as the pages from these have been known to disappear. You should also try and get written witness testimonies from co-workers.
How we can help
One of the issues with injury via defective equipment is proving fault, sometimes this is obvious, sometimes it is simply an accident. The criteria for a claim depends on proving an element of negligence. To gain our assistance you need to open a case, this is done by taking advantage of our free consultation service, activated by the link at the top of the page, should you wish to start a case the caseworker will send you the suitable payment link.
To quantify compensation our legal team will appoint consultants (either Health and Safety, Medical or both) to assess your situation, they are privately contracted by us (and therefore their cost would be classed as a disbursement). To quantify the potential claim in regard to mental trauma we would suggest an additional report from our psychological team.
The claim will consider two types of damages:
- General damages- this compensates the victim for the pain and suffering endured, and for the loss of enjoyment of life as a result of the negligent act.
- Special damages- this compensates the victim for any personal costs incurred as a result of the negligent act. It can also cover any additional costs required in the future such as remedial surgery to remedy the mistake, mental suffering and so on.
Please note your caseworker can only give generic advice, their role is to prepare your details for handling by our legal team and medical consultant and to act as your point of contact, they will also issue you with your Password and PIN, these will be needed to log onto your client dashboard. From your dashboard you will be able to manage and view every aspect of your case, upload documents, images, files etc.