The fact that you work in a school rather than in any other type of employment has no adverse effect on your right to claim personal injury compensation if you are the victim of a workplace accident. Your employer has a clearly defined legal duty to ensure both that your school is a safe working environment for all employees and also to ensure, as far as is reasonably practicable your health, safety and welfare whilst you are at work.
If you are unfortunate enough to have an accident at work that you feel wasn’t your fault you need to be able to determine whose fault it actually was. At this point it is well worth considering retaining the services of a specialist work accident solicitor, who will be able to accurately determine who was to blame for your accident and advise you as to whether or not you can bring your claim.
To be able to bring that claim for compensation for the accident you had at your school, the cause of your accident needs to be investigated. If that cause would not have existed if your employer had taken all reasonably practicable steps to eliminate it as they are legally obliged to do and if your accident was clearly a reasonably foreseeable consequence of your employer not taking those steps, then you might well be able to pursue your claim.
A relatively clear cut example of determining the viability of a personal injury compensation claim would be if a school employee broke her ankle falling into a water filled pothole as she supervised a playground. The Head Teacher had long been aware of the poor condition of the playground surface but remedial work had not been carried out. The poor surface constituted hazard and risk to the health and safety of staff and pupils alike.
The Head Teacher or controlling authority for the school has a legal duty to control that risk either by ideally repairing the playground surface or if that wasn’t immediately possible, preventing staff and students accessing it and erecting warning signs. If none of these steps had been taken the controlling authority for the school could have been clearly demonstrated to have been in breach of their legal health and safety obligations and duty of care to staff and students and as an injury was a reasonably foreseeable consequence of this breach, they could be held responsible for the accident.
Making your Injury Claim
If you would like our expert Personal Injury Claim Solicitors on your side please email us on advice@the-personal-injury-solicitors.co.uk and we will be in touch with you very soon.
Remember, it costs nothing to ask and you receive 100% of your compensation.