A former Scottish professional footballer has launched a personal injury compensation claim against the prestigious Turnberry Hotel and Golf Club after falling from a ladder in the build up to the 2009 Open Championship.

According to reports in the Scottish Sun, keen amateur golfer and ex-Glasgow Rangers goalkeeper Peter McCloy was working as a starter at the tournament when he was asked to climb up a ladder and fix a net on his own.

However, the ladder slipped and he fell 10ft, leaving him with a broken bone in his shoulder, which needed surgery. As a result, he now has scars and restricted movement in his arm, is at risk of early arthritis and was unable to drive for months.

Commenting on the news, the bosses at Turnberry insisted the accident had nothing to do with them and was the sole fault of Mr McCloy.

Nonetheless, the former goalkeeper, who played for Rangers between 1970 and 1986, lodged a personal injury compensation claim, seeking to recover as much as £50,000 for the accident.

A serious accident at work that occurred at an East Yorkshire factory could lead to a personal injury compensation claim, after one employee severed his finger in a blending machine.

According to reports from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), the worker was using a ribbon blender to mix ingredients for a health product company when his fingers became caught in the machine’s rotating blades.

His index finger had to be amputated, while he also suffered severe cuts and nerve damage to his middle finger.

The HSE was told another worker had removed a fixed guard underneath the machine, as well as a valve that needed replacing and did not put it back because he knew it needed a new part.

At a hearing Bee Health, based in Wakefield, pleaded guilty to two safety breaches. As a result, the firm was fined £7,000 and made to pay costs worth close to £5,000.

Commenting on the news, HSE inspector Denise Fotherham said the firm failed to assess the risks involved with using the machine, and because of that, none of the workers knew that the valve was an essential part of the guarding of the blender and should not have been removed.

“Bee Health also took no steps to prevent the machine being used if the valve was taken off, such as an interlock. A simple measure like that and adequate instructions for employees would have meant a worker not suffering this debilitating injury,” she added.

People who are making a personal injury compensation claim worth more than £250,000 find the legal process much easier and successful when all the professionals involved in the case work together, according to one expert.

Writing a post on the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers’ (APIL) blog, Deborah Evans, chief executive of the organisation, explained that there is a code that has been developed and piloted in recent years to improve the experience of taking legal action following a catastrophic injury.

The Multi Track Code has numerous facets, but includes suggestions like a pre-defined ‘route map’ to be agreed by all parties – i.e. claimant lawyers, defendant lawyers and insurers. This document includes a timetable, review dates and mechanisms for resolving disputes and encourages a “full and frank exchange of information”.

In the code, it reads: “The aims and objectives of this multi-track code will be achieved through the parties working together, allocating tasks and narrowing the issues throughout the claim, leading to a settlement or some means of dispute resolution at the earliest time.”

In her post, Ms Evans stated that in its pilot period, the code has been a success, with “openness, respect, good behaviour and a positive attitude” at its core.

Benefits to the personal injury claimant, she said, include positive joint working, early admissions of liability, improved cash flow, fewer cases going to court and the provision of early rehabilitation.

The expert explained that the next step is to make sure the code is used in more personal injury claims. It is hoped that the code can be launched officially in 2012.

An accident at work that claimed the life of a foreman could result in a personal injury compensation claim, after three parties were all fined for their negligence.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reported that Hydro Plant Ltd and Michael Cunningham were prosecuted back in May after Euro Earthworks Ltd employee Gerry Fox was crushed by a concrete-filled excavator bucket, which fell from the arm of an excavator being driven by Mr Cunningham.

The accident, which took place in 2007, led to Mr Cunningham and Hydro Plant – the plant hire firm providing the excavator – being hit with fines totalling £18,700, as City of London Magistrates’ Court heard that both breached important safety regulations.

A ‘quick hitch’ pin should have been inserted into the excavator arm by Mr Cunningham, but wasn’t, while the operator positioned the bucket directly over Mr Fox and site supervisor Tim McCarthy. Hydro Plant was found to not have a suitable regime of inspection for the plant, in addition to a lack of warning signs, written instructions or CE marking.

The third prosecution – of Euro Earthworks – took place at a hearing last week, with the firm being fined £20,000 and ordered to pay costs worth £13,000.

Commenting on the news, HSE inspector Loraine Charles, said: “This tragic incident was entirely preventable. There had already been a significant number of incidents involving buckets becoming detached from quick hitches, in particular semi-automatic quick hitches where operators had failed to insert the safety pin.”

It could be that a personal injury compensation claim is now launched by members of Mr Fox’s family, to try and compensate for the pain and suffering they have endured as a result of his death.

The number of people lodging personal injury claims could increase in the near future unless Britons take heed of advice from one organisation.

According to the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers (APIL), those exploring the countryside over the next couple of weeks need to be alert about the dangers of protective cows with calves.

The warning comes after Clive Monk was seriously injured walking in the North Yorkshire Moors last month.

Mr Monk followed a footpath into a field of cows grazing with their calves when one suddenly broke away from the herd and charged him, trampling him several times and then sitting on his legs. His ankle was snapped and shoulder dislocated.

He advised: “Don’t take for granted that if a field has a footpath it must be safe.”
Stephen Lawson, secretary of the APIL and Cheshire-based farmer, explained members of the body have reported numerous cases of severe injuries – sometimes fatal – caused by the animals.

“At this time of year, cows are grazing with their calves and can be fiercely protective. Too many people are unaware that this is when these seemingly docile animals pose a very real danger to the public,” he added.

In 2008, a woman and her personal injury solicitors successfully negotiated a settlement of £54,000 after being trampled and injured by a cow while walking on a National Trust public footpath.

She claimed the farmer who owned the animals was liable by allowing the cows and their calves to be in a field that could be accessed by the public and not realising they become more aggressive when with their young.

Personal injury compensation has been awarded to a former police officer in the West Midlands after he claimed he received no back-up from colleagues as he made an arrest, which led to him sustaining a serious injury.

According to reports from the Birmingham Mail, Richard Gardner received £12,933 in total after telling Birmingham Employment Tribunal he was forced to miss work for months following a clash with a suspect in the middle of a hostile crowd of people.

He damaged his knees and back as he fell to the pavement and subsequently required several operations.

However, Mr Gardner asserted he received no help from police colleagues at the time of the arrest, and that the force failed to make adjustments for his injuries when he eventually returned to work.

The ex-officer, who received two commendations during his time with the police, also stated his belief that he would have eventually become a sergeant had he not injured himself.

At the tribunal, judge David Kearsely said Mr Gardner had a “permanent disability” and that he would have been able to work for 20 hours a week until he was 60 if the police made appropriate adjustments following his injuries.

The news source noted the £12,933 personal injury compensation accounted for loss of earnings due to his injuries, hurt feelings and interest dating back to 2008.

Further compensation could still be claimed over future loss of earnings and health insurance.

West Midlands Police have appealed the decision of the employment tribunal.

A plumber from Warrington narrowly avoided paralysis or even death after a serious accident at work, it has emerged.

According to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), a 64-year-old, who has asked not to be named, fell through a fragile tile on a suspended ceiling tile in a workshop in Woolston, while installing a hot water heater near the edge of a boarded area of the roof.

He landed on his neck, sustaining injuries to his neck and head and requiring a neck brace for a total of 12 weeks.

The incident took place in August 2008 but occupiers of the site Dowding and Mills UK Ltd and the worker’s employer Mike Wilde were recently prosecuted by the HSE and fined.

The organisation found that a plumber had fallen through a ceiling tile in the same premises in 2006, but avoided injury by grabbing on to the ceiling boards.

Commenting on the news, HSE inspector Martin Heywood said: “It’s disappointing this work was allowed to go ahead without suitable planning for working at height.”

“Dowding and Mills ignored its own procedures for checking the methods contractors intended to use when undertaking work. Mike Wilde should have made sure a safety barrier was erected or instructed the worker to wear a harness.”

According to statistics from the HSE, 12 people died after falling from height at work in 2010, while over 4,000 employees suffered major injuries after a similar accident at work.

An announcement made earlier this week by Work and Pensions Minister, Chris Grayling MP, could have serious repercussions for the number of serious accidents at work in the UK.

In the announcement, Grayling confirmed that the number of HSE inspections is set to fall by at least a third. In addition, the new policy means that many businesses, and in some instances whole industries, will not be investigated until after there has been a death or serious injury.

Speaking in the Mirror, Grayling claimed that the changes to HSE inspection legislation were a cut to “unnecessary red tape”.

However many accident at work solicitors feel that this may represent flawed thinking.

These changes to policy have obvious implications for UK accident at work statistics; if health and safety inspections are not being carried out, employers are more likely to become negligent in their maintenance of a safe working environment.

Fining companies post-accident for neglect of health and safety practices also seems a mistake; surely dissuasion, by way of regular HSE inspections and fines for non-compliance with regulations, is a better way of avoiding workplace accidents?

Many UK work injury lawyers are now predicting that serious accidents at work will rise as a direct result of the Work and Pensions minister’s changes to HSE inspections.

If you want to find out more about claiming compensation following an accident at work, contact the team at Alkers Solicitors. Our specialist personal injury solicitors will be happy to discuss the details of your case during an initial consultation.

MPs look set to debate whether the speed limit on British motorways should be increased from 70mph to 80mph. A decision could be made on the matter before parliament breaks for summer in July.

However, road safety campaigners argue that any increase in Britain’s maximum speed limit will lead to an inevitable increase in road traffic accidents.

Research conducted by the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety (PACTS) appears to support this opinion, suggesting that a speed limit increase of 10mph will increase road traffic accident casualties by between 5 and 10 percent.

However, the MPs behind the proposed increase hope that an 80mph speed limit will allow for shorter journey times and will help to ease congestion on some of Britain’s busiest motorways.

Speaking to the Daily Mirror, roads minister Mike Penning said: ‘We need to look at the economic benefits of shorter journey times as well as considering implications for road safety.’

However, a spokesperson for speed awareness campaigner Coyote noted that the plans are ‘sending out completely the wrong signal to drivers and mak[ing] a mockery of road safety policy.’

In an effort to quell the worries of road safety campaigners, the government will consider whether the speed limit increase should only be implemented during the day.

There were 132 road traffic accident deaths on UK motorways in 2009 at a time when the total number of road deaths was 2,222 – the lowest since records began.  It remains to be seen whether this promising trend will be reversed by an increase in maximum speed limit.

For more information on claiming compensation following road traffic accidents, whether on motorways or other UK roads, contact the experienced personal injury solicitors at Alkers Solicitors.