Cases:
Employers Liability

Simon's Story

Simon was a chemical process operator in a large chemical plant near Nottingham. On the day of his accident he was on the fourth floor of one of the distillation units checking a piece of equipment. As he was crossing the platform, he fell through an open trap door landing approximately 15 feet below, on a concrete plinth. He suffered a spinal fracture dislocation with associated paraplegia and complete loss of sensation below the waist. He lost bladder and bowel control and also sexual function. He is now wheelchair bound and will remain so.

He brought a claim for damages against his employers on the basis that the area in which he was working was dark and the trap door had been left open by another employee who had failed to tell Simon. Having worked on this platform for a considerable length of time he had no reason to expect the trap door to have been opened.

His employers argued that he had simply been careless. They submitted that he knew the trap door had been left open because he had been present when a colleague had opened the trap door and indeed Simon was involved in passing material through the open door. Accordingly they denied any responsibility for the accident.

Barratt Goff & Tomlinson were able to interview a number of colleagues of Simon who despite still being employed by Simon’s employers gave evidence that the trap door must have been opened by another employee before Simon came on shift and that this employee had simply forgotten to close the trap door. We finally identified that employee.

At Trial the Court accepted Simon’s evidence and found his employers to be both negligent and in breach of their legal duties to him. They did however take the view that despite not knowing that the trap door was open, Simon should have taken extra care and accordingly reduced his compensation by 25%.

During the course of the claim we asked his employers for an interim payment to allow him to move house. He was living in a small terraced house with very limited wheelchair accessibility. His employers refused and we made an Application to a High Court Judge who agreed with our submissions and Ordered his employers to make an interim payment in the sum of £300,000. This enabled Simon to buy and adapt a bungalow in which he and his family could live.

At Trial he was awarded just under £1.5million.