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Law Bulletin - March 2007

Manual Handling Cases

This claimant succeeded when injured moving a kerb stone at work

He was moving the kerb from one pallet to another directly next to it with other kerbs on. The kerb slipped from his hand, bounced off the pallet and trapped three of his fingers between the kerb he was moving and a further kerb on the right.

He was not wearing any gloves as they had become wet and were more of a hindrance when wet.

Breaches of Workplace Regulation 10 (1) on the basis of the confined space he was working in, the Manual Handling Regulations for the lack of manual handling procedures and equipment and the PPE Regulations for the lack of suitable gloves were pleaded.

Their own witness confirmed there were no manual handling procedures in place, there were no instructions on wearing of gloves and no particular instructions on how to carry out the job.

Judgment for the claimant 80/20 in his favour.

Nottingham County Court, 27 February 2007.

This client worked at night on train lines

He burned bolts from rails. He had a work set of two cylinders and a trolley weighing about 150 kg. When lifting these by hand from track level to platform he strained his back.

The defendant said that, as the claimant was a supervisor, his responsibility was to make a dynamic assessment of the risk and choose a safe method of work. There could not always be lifting equipment available when working nights on this sort of job.

The claimant’s argument was that the lift and manual handling could have been removed altogether by engineering means, i.e. the use of a road / rail vehicle.

His last manual handling training had been 10 years before.

The Judge found that, if there were better methods of doing the task, it was for the defendant to provide training in those methods.

Judgment for the claimant at 15 per cent contributory negligence because he was the senior man at the job and should have known he was doing something risky.

Newcastle upon Tyne County Court, 6 February 2007.