Factory accident compensation

Anyone working in a factory should have a safe environment to carry out their job. Your employer has a responsibility to make sure any risks of injury are as low as possible by giving you the right training, the right tools, the right protective clothing, a safe working environment and a safe method of working.

The noise, the atmosphere, the field of vision, the activities carried out should all be assessed and appropriate safety measures put in place to either stop that “one off” accident or repeated exposure to a dangerous environment which causes harm over time, for example noise.

Depending on your role you may need to wear safety glasses, ear defenders, gloves, helmets, masks or protective clothing. It is up to your employer to make sure these garments, known as personal protective equipment (PPE), are provided to you free of charge. PPE should also be repaired or replaced if faulty or unusable and your employer is responsible for this as well.

Every function you carry out should be risk assessed and proper training given to ensure you know what you and your colleagues are doing.

If these things don’t happen and you get hurt then we believe that makes your employer responsible. You have the right to claim against your employer to make up for your loss.

Factory accident injuries should be avoidable

Employers have a duty of care for their staff and there are specific work regulations designed to safeguard employees from risk of factory accidents.

A safe working environment is also a legal entitlement for factory workers. Equipment should be checked regularly and inspected for damage, signs of wear and faults. Any problems found should be repaired or replaced before it is used again and these need to be recorded.

When factories do not fulfil their duties to implement health and safety regulations in the work place, and this results in an employee being injured while simply carrying out their job, then it is possible to pursue a factory accident claim against them.

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Examples of factory injury claim success

William Sharkey cut his hand with a knife while working in a meat processing factory. He made a factory injury claim through Digby Brown and our Ayr office proved his employers failed to follow safety guidelines because the handle of the knife Mr Sharkey used was smooth and not fitted with a special grip known as quillions which would have prevented the accident. This investigation helped Mr Sharkey secure £4,000 in damages – nearly three times the £1,500 his employer original offered.

We also helped Mrs P from Kirkcaldy. She injured her ankle after slipping on a greasy substance that had leaked from a machine. Her employer admitted fault yet made no offer of compensation. But after making an accident at work claim through Digby Brown Mrs P secured more than £14,000.

How Digby Brown helps with factory accident claims?

Once you get in touch, we simply find out from you exactly, in your own words, what happened. Obviously in some cases this information might be from either a family member, friend or colleague. Hopefully we can help and can immediately start the process. Sometimes we might need more information but we explain why at the time.

We will explain how we fund the case, using our “Compensate” funding scheme. It is a “no win no fee” model, which simply means you don’t pay any legal fees whilst the case is ongoing and only once the cases successfully settles will we take our fee which is an agreed, at the start, percentage of the award of damages. This is no more than 20% including VAT for a workplace accident.

If we aren’t successful, you don’t pay anything. This means we have a vested interest in ensuring a good outcome otherwise we are not being paid for a huge amount of work.

Why use Digby Brown?

We are very proud of our track record. We have over 100 years experience helping people get back on their feet after injuries caused by negligence. We have helped tens of thousands of people over those years probably in the region of 100,000. We really like what we do.

We help people who have had a bad thing happen to them, to seek answers and fair financial compensation. We can’t turn back time and make what happened not happen but we can hold guilty people accountable and make them pay for what they have done wrong.

We aim to make the process as smooth as possible. That means doing the legal work as efficiently as possible and even just speaking to you in plain English when we phone you with an update on your case.

Digby Brown recovers more than £100million every year for clients. For the last 18 years our expertise has been recognised by Chambers & Partners and 14 years by The Legal 500 which are the go-to guides for accessing legal help and why we’ve been named Scotland’s Law Firm of the Year for five out of the last seven years (2015, 2016, 2018, 2019 and 2022).

This proven track record is why thousands of people come to Digby Brown for legal support – whether through word of mouth or by being referred by trusted charities.

If you would like to talk to someone, simply call us we are open 8.00am to 8.30pm Monday to Friday and 12 to 4pm at the weekends or simply fill in an enquiry form and someone can call you back at your convenience.

Because it matters...