Mother Wins Case for Back Injury at Workplace

Case by: LPC & GDL Matthew Shiels Updated: July 25, 2023

Workplace injury leads to compensation for mother of two

Our industrial disease solicitors have helped a young mother win a case against her former employers, after she experienced a serious and avoidable accident whilst working in a kitchen.

What was the case?

The client was working in a busy kitchen during service hours and went to put rubbish in the bins. As she was walking back, she slipped on a large quantity of water that had collected near some of the fridges. The awkward way in which she landed led to a suspected fracture of her coccyx (the base of the spine).

In strong support of her case, the client had helpfully taken photos of the state of the kitchen on the day that the accident happened. There was rubbish and water all over the floor, and a leaking tap which had likely caused the spillage. This was clearly only held together with a cloth and duct tape. The client’s employer denied all liability and provided photographs that apparently showed a clean and tidy kitchen.

The outcome

Our solicitor carefully investigated the times that the employer had taken the photos of the clean kitchen and found that they were well before the kitchen had even opened, so they did not prove that the kitchen had been a safe working environment at the time of the accident.

After being shown the comparison photographs that our client had taken, the employer fully accepted our offer 2 days later, and our client received £6,500. As our client is the mother of two very young children, the recovery time of this accident severely affected her day to day life with them, and so we were pleased to be able to assist this family in returning to normal and ensuring that they were suitably compensated.

If you have unfortunately experienced something similar in your workplace, you could benefit from our help. Get in touch to find out what you could be entitled to.

Hear more about the member(s) of our team featured above:

• Stacy Pimlott Senior Associate Solicitor/Team Manager view profile