UK Back Injury Claim
Welcome to the website of Boris Kremer, a UK personal injury solicitor.
If you would like to discuss your potential back injury claim, please either:
- Click Free Assessment and complete the online questionnaire, or
- Telephone me to discuss your claim personally, on 0845 021 2222.
Case Study: Back Injury Claim
I acted previously for a client in Bristol, who suffered a back injury at work. Read more...
The legal framework
Back injury compensation claims nearly always rely upon the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
The Manual Handling regulations say that, so far as is reasonably practicable, the employer must:
- Avoid the need for his employees to undertake any manual handling operations at work, which involve a risk of their being injured
- The Regulations contain a Diagram, shown on the right. This states the maximum safe weights that an employee might be expected to lift
- Where it is not reasonably practicable to avoid the need for manual handling, then a suitable risk assessment must be carried out
Back injury risk assessments
In nearly every back injury claim, the existence or otherwise of a risk assessment will be important consideration in assessing legal liability.
The risk assessment must take into account factors such as:
- The nature of the task
- The nature of the load being carried
- The working environment
- The capabilities of the individual
Back injury claim overview
Over the last 15 years I have handled a number of back injury claims, caused by work.
Back injury sufferers often describe the following difficulties:
- Constant pain
- Broken sleep
- Depression and loss of motivation
- Social withdrawal, and feelings of isolation
- Strained family relationships
- Confusion concerning the range of medical options
- Anxiety over whether to have surgery
- Fading away of initial support, as there is no visible injury
- Uncertainty over when the pain will resolve
- Inability to return to previous job
- Financial pressure
- Loss of sexual function
The final straw
In some back injury cases, the injury is cumulative.
In cases involving repetitive lifting, the injury can be caused over an extended period of time. This can lead to the person's back ending up in what is called an "incipient state of collapse". In other words, it just takes a minor incident for the back to break down.
I have previously dealt with back injury compensation claims where the "final straw" has been:
- Crouching down to apply some shrink wrapping, after a year spent repetitively bending down and picking up boxes of batteries at a factory making portable aircraft runway lights
- Bending down to tuck in a duvet, following several months spent lifting and carrying heavy laundry bags in the employment of a hotel
- Sneezing during the morning tea break, following 6 months spent doing home deliveries on behalf of a catalogue company
- Tripping and falling from an excavator, one dark morning on a building site at Swindon. For more details of this case, please click here...
Types of Back Injury
Back injuries can encompass a wide range of conditions including:
- Strains, sprains and soft tissue injuries
- Disc prolapses
- Disturbance and ligaments and muscles, giving rise to backache
- The acceleration/exacerbation of a pre-existing condition
- Crush fractures of lumbar vertebrae
- Injuries requiring spinal fusion
- Cauda equina syndrome (back pain with impaired bladder and bowel function, sexual difficulties and numbness in lower limbs)
Whatever the precise nature of the back injury, the principle of obtaining compensation is always the same. The principle is to put the injured person back in the position they would have been, but for the accident.
Tactics used by Insurers
In many cases the claim is contested. Insurance companies like to portray themselves in television advertising as being "cuddly" and "approachable".
However when fighting to obtain damages from them in a back injury compensation claim, they reveal a very different side to their character.
The following tactics are often used:
- Alleging that there was no actual accident
- Even if it is conceded that there was an accident, then trying to blame the injured person
- Trawling through the injured person's GP records, to try to prove pre-existing back trouble
- Maintaining that the symptoms are being exaggerated
- Alleging that proper manual handling training has been provided
- Arranging a medical examination with a "pro-insurer" orthopaedic surgeon
- Refusing to acknowledge the claim until county court proceedings are issued
The role of the solicitor
In my experience, back injury claims require a certain type of approach. The solicitor who is successful in fighting these cases must must:
- Anticipate the tactics used by the insurers, and employ suitable countermeasures
- Press the opposing insurers to provide disclosure of appropriate manual handling training records and risk assessments
- Issue court proceedings if co-operation from the opposing insurers is not forthcoming
- Very importantly, provide appropriate support and reassurance to an often anxious and distressed client, throughout the lifetime of the case
The final word
Although back injury claims can be difficult, they are winnable. If you would like an initial free assessment of your potential claim, please either:- Click Free Assessment and complete the online questionnaire, or
- Telephone me to discuss your claim personally, on 0845 021 2222.
UK back injury claim legal advice.
Back injury compensation