Some Accidents are Preventable

Accidents may be a part of life, but many can be avoided. In the home, one simple solution to keep people from painfully stubbing toes is to wear slippers. This way, the next time someone accidentally kicks a table leg, the toes are protected from injury.

The same principle can be applied to a construction site. Just like a home, minimising foot injuries can be done when workers don protective footwear. Work boots, like those that have metal toe caps, go a long way to shielding the feet from damage.

But what happens if workers are still injured even if protective measures he has taken? If negligence can be found on the part of the company, then workers may file a claim against the company.

This remedy was created to assist workers, who despite taking the proper work precautions, still sustain injury due to the negligence of their companies or of their co-workers

Suppose a crane was in the process of transferring several pieces of rebar from a manufacturing plant to a loading truck through the use of a crane. Due to the lack of proper maintenance for the crane, the metal bars ended up dropping on the feet of several workers wearing steel-capped boots, resulting in sever injuries to their feet.

At this point the worker may consider filing individual accidents at work claims for the injuries they sustained because despite their efforts to provide protection, they were still injured due to negligence.


Tort Law as a Remedy

What makes this type of legal remedy different is that it falls under Tort Law, which deals with the rights, obligations, and remedies that fall under civil proceedings for people who have suffered injury because of the wrongful acts of others.

The put it plainly, Tort Law deals with civil wrongs where action is taken by one person against another. And since companies are considered legal entities, claims can be filed against them, as if they were a real person.

By contrast, Criminal Law is action involving the state. One example is theft wherein police become involved because this type of action is considered a crime against the state.

The biggest difference between these two types of laws is that in Tort Law, no one goes to jail. The resulting decision in Tort Cases usually means some form of financial compensation is provided to either side. This can be in the form of damages for the injured worker, now called the plaintiff. Or it can be in the form of reimbursement to the company, now called the defendant or tortfeasor.

Though the process normally involves securing the services of a solicitor to represent the plaintiff and tortfeasor in civil court, both parties are encouraged to settle their differences out of court. This is done to provide a speedy solution and prevent the courts from being overburdened with too many accidents at work claims that can otherwise be settled amicably.

Example of a Work Accident Law

In filing work accident claims, it is imperative for the prosecutor, or the injured victim, to prove that the injuries he sustained were caused by an accident in the workplace that could have been reasonably avoided had the employer been more responsible or less negligent. Yet, in some cases, people who have suffered injuries from work accidents do not know that they are capable of demanding compensation because they lack enough knowledge on what can count as “negligence” on the part of the employer. 

Now, this is understandable since laymen cannot be expected to understand legal intricacies without formal study. However, it will conduce greatly to the increasing of their knowledge if they understand acts of negligence as outright disobedience to or deviations from the obligations imposed upon employers by an accident at work law.

Much information on work accident laws are easily accessible on the Internet today, but the most relevant and significant include the following ones: The Workplace Regulations 1992, The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1992, and The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992. Each of these specialized laws deals with a specific aspect of employer obligation, but they do not apply to all workplace cases singly because different workplaces require different responsibilities.

Let us take The Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 as an example of a possible work accident law to illustrate how employer negligence can materialize in terms of work accidents. Now, according to this law, employers are obligated, among other things, to perform the following three responsibilities: to provide personal protective equipment to their employees, to maintain and replace such equipment, and to inform employees on how to use them. In other words, this law imposes upon employers, whose employees’ health and safety might be put at risk by the conditions of the workplace, the duty of provision and maintenance of personal protective equipment and the necessary training on how to properly use them.

From this law, then, employers can be accused of negligence by a simple conversion of said duties that is, if they did not provide such equipment; or having provided it, did not keep it in good condition; or having kept it in good condition, did not inform employees on how to use it. The devil is in the details, but essentially any of these could be the basis of a work accident claim.

This is also the general logic which all work accident claimants should follow. Once claimants, with the help of their personal injury lawyer, have identified the obligations outlined by a accident at work law that their employers had been remiss about, then there will be more likelihood of their being able to claim their compensation successfully.