Mrs E was employed as an administration assistant in an office and part of her duties included filing of files and documents. Her employers had a racking system to hold the files, which filled one of the walls.
This meant that some of the filing had to be done at above head height.
To access the higher levels she had to stand on a stool and whilst she was doing this the stool tipped over and she sustained an injury to her left ankle.
Initially her employer denied liability and argued that she should not have used the stool to stand on because she should have known that it was unstable.
We were able to argue that no other means of accessing the higher levels of the racking system were available and that this was the only way she could carry out this part of her duties.
We were also able to show that Mrs E’s employers knew that she was doing her job in this way and did not intervene to tell her to stop or provide a safe means of accessing the racking.
We were able to show that Mrs E’s employers had not carried out a risk assessment and so had exposed her to an avoidable risk of injury.
After the accident an assessment was carried out and appropriate kick stools were purchased for future use by employees
We successfully obtained compensation for Mrs E of £3,000.
