Negligence
My policies!
Owners of property are generally aware of the need to take out insurance policies against loss or damage to the property. It is foolish to think, for instance, that if something falls from the sky onto a building, a viable claim in negligence will subsist against some person to pay for the damage caused to the building. Furthermore, as a practical matter, it is foolish to think that even if such a claim were to validly subsist, that that would be easily converted into the full recovery of that compensation.
Shake, Rattle & Roll
Vibration would not be readily seen, by workers, as a danger to health in the workplace. It is, and the injury can be serious.
Chemical Hazards at Work
A toxic chemical is a poison. The poison may enter the body through the skin and not simply by the obvious routes of ingestion or breathing. Effects may not be immediate; a chemical may have a chronic effect, rather than an immediate acute effect.
The Outcome
Medical negligence litigation is unlike litigation generally. The cases throw up arguments about causation the like of which do not appear elsewhere.
Repetitive Strain Injury
Assembly workers in some employments may be exposed to very high repetitions of movements daily. The condition may have different names; Synovitis, Bursitis, Tenosynovitis, Tendinitis, Peritendinitis, Epicondylitis or even Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.
Skin Disease
It is generally agreed that skin disease is the commonest occupationally-caused disease.
Fighting (2)
For the Plaintiff, “fighting” did not require him to give evidence; the case was run purely on legal arguments. Although the judgement of the three-judge Court of Appeal was unanimous in his favour, the legal arguments were sufficiently cogent to defeat him in first instance (and to have attracted the Defendants’ lawyers to the course of action they took, in the first instance).
Employers’ Duties
An employer owes duties to employees under Common Law and statute. The common law duties have been developed by the courts as they decide cases on accidents at work.
Time Wasters
“Most of the suggestions put in cross-examination to the plaintiff as to what he should have done were farfetched and wholly unreal as I have already indicated.”