Youngs Settle Personal Injury Claim for over 1 million pounds

Youngs Law are delighted to confirm that the Personal Injury Team have achieved a fantastic settlement for one of their clients. We have just settled a Personal Injury claim for over 1 million pounds following an Employers Liability claim dating back to an incident that occurred in July 2018. The final settlement was £1,150,000.00.

The Claimant, who wishes to remain anonymous was employed by the defendant as a Computer Numerical Control (CNC) Setter Operator, he had worked for the firm for 2 years prior to the incident.

In July 2018, the claimant was in process of setting up a glass press tool machine, which involves a glass sheet being placed into a furnace and once it reaches a specific temperature, removing the glass and pressing the moulds onto it.

The bending machine was second-hand machinery which was a few years old. The defendant wanted the machine to bend the glass for boats as they had been outsourcing this to other companies. The seller of the machine advised them that they would not be able to use the machine to create the boat glass, but they purchased it anyway.

The company were fully aware that he was the only one working on that shift and they were aware of the tasks that had to be done in order to ensure the smooth working of the manufacturing procedure. Normally there would be a couple of people to do this job as it involves manual lifting. He had raised this issue with the managers previously and suggested a Rolled Steel Joist ( R S J with a pully to avoid manual lifting. These suggestions were not implemented.

As he was pushing the moulding tool along, it began to lean to the right. If I had let the tool drop to the floor, it would have fallen into packs of glass which would have severely injured anyone walking past. I put pressure on my right leg to stop the tool from falling.

Unfortunately, the weight of the mould was too great as it started to lean. The claimant fell to the floor with the moulding tool landing on top of my leg causing a complex fracture to his right leg.

He was advised at that time that long-term complications were likely and that by 12 months after the accident, he would have reached the endpoint of his recovery period, unable to return to work he took a year off to recover from the injury. He was paid by the defendant during this time but lost out on overtime pay that he regularly undertook.

During recovery there was weekly hydrotherapy and physiotherapy from April 2018 to August 2018 which helped but did not alleviate the symptoms entirely. In August 2018, after a holiday in Weymouth he felt unwell with a headache and a cold. His wife noticed that my right leg was hot and inflamed and took me to hospital.

He was diagnosed with streptococcus, an infection in my right leg. The wound had healed however there was an insect bite near the site of the wound which the doctors presumed had triggered the infection. He had further surgery on 24 August 2018 to reopen the wound, wash it out and a vac pack was placed on my leg which I had to wear for around 2 weeks. During surgery they had to remove part of the metal work inserted in my original surgery and when doing so they noticed that the bone had not united.

He was in pain, however the infection had resolved therefore they decided to leave the metal work out and for the bone to heal on its own. I remained in hospital for a couple of weeks.

In January 2019 I was declared fit to go back to work for a phased return. His mobility is still greatly reduced following the accident and now finds it hard to do DIY, cleaning and gardening tasks around his home, which is causing strain in his personal life. He also suffers with problems sleeping due to anxiety around his future employability and the financial implications.

The case was settled on Friday, 16^th December 2022. Liability was admitted by the defendant for this accident and a fee of £1,150,000 was agreed for the accident.

The claimant thanked Youngs for their support during the claim:

“Youngs have been amazing for me. They offered me great support during the course of my claim and gave me honest and practical legal advice.
They really have been second to none and I’d recommend them to anyone who suffers an injury that wasn’t their fault.”