Mr Y was employed by a building company as a joiner. On the day of his accident there was no joinery work available for him and so he was instructed to operate a mobile digger to move debris from one area of the yard to another.
He was not trained in the use of the digger, moved it too close to the edge of a ditch and it began to tip over.
He was unable to stop the digger from falling and tried to get out of the driver’s cab before it fell over with him inside. He was unable to get out in time and the digger fell onto his right leg causing a crush injury to his right ankle and leg.
Mr Y’s employer initially denied liability and argued that Mr Y should not have been operating the digger because he was untrained.
We were able to argue successfully that the foreman had instructed him to do this even though Mr Y had told them that he did not have a “ticket” to operate the digger.
We were also able to show that it was common practice for employees to be allocated other jobs if there was no work for them to do in their usual job, even if they were untrained.
We successfully obtained compensation for Mr Y of £15,000.
