Chasing a factory accident compensation claim is a difficult process as these types of compensation claims are thought of as the most complicated personal injury compensation claims to deal with.
To give yourself the best chance of being successful you may have to include specific details of your present health, your future financial security, your relationship with your work colleagues and the integrity of the business owner where you work. If you do not include any aspect of a factory accident compensation claim it may result in you being awarded an insufficient amount of personal accident compensation to finance your medical care or to support your family’s financial needs.
Due to this it is strongly recommended that you consult with an experienced solicitor who has experience in handling compensation claims. Every factory accident compensation claim will be different even when the injuries experienced have a lot in common.
Factory Accident Compensation Claims: See the Doctor First
After you are hurt in a factory accident, tending to your own health must be your first concern. Your initial instinct should be to be treated medically as soon as possible. You must disregard the inclination to try and work through the suffering.
You should ensure that you are seen by a qualified medical professional as soon as you can in the aftermath of the accident. It is also very important should you intend on filing a factory accident compensation claim. This is due to the fact that without the Medical Assessment Form (Form B) you cannot submit a personal injury claim for a factory accident via the Injuries Board Ireland and, should you not seek medical treatment as quickly as possible, it may be claimed that you, in some way, contributed to the extent of your injuries by neglecting to tend to your health as soon as you should have.
Are You in a Position to File a Factory Accident Compensation Claim?
Factory Accidents are very common and can occur for many different reasons. However, the fact that a factory accident occurred does not automatically mean that you can claim for factory injury compensation. In order to claim compensation for a factory accident, you should be able to show that your injuries were caused due to a neglect on the part of your employer or another member of staff in the factory who had a duty of care to provide you with a safe working environment.
Your employer has a duty of care in relation to safeguarding your health and safety – starting with completing with a risk assessment of the hazards that you face in your role and your ability to carry out your tasks safely. Maintaining equipment, machines, providing necessary proper training, supervision and carrying out performance reviews to ensure ongoing high standards are just some of the duties that an employer should ensure are completed to minimise potential for factory accidents to occur.
Your employer must also make you aware of any dangers to be aware of in relation to your job before you start it, provide you with the correct personal protective equipment in good working condition to help you avoid a possible injury and ensure that you use it. Should the neglect of your employer, or any other person with a duty of care towards you or one of your workplace co-workers, cause you to suffer an injury in a factory accident you should be able to claim factory accident compensation.
You do not have to be a full-time, contracted worker in order to be able to claim factory accident compensation. Agency staff, workers on short-term contracts and workers who are self-employed are all entitled to the same duty of care when employed in a factory. Your employment status rarely affects your injury at work rights, but if you would like to see this for yourself you should speak with a personal injury claims solicitor as soon as possible.
How to Begin a Claim for Factory Accident Compensation
Once you are clear that you can establish that your accident happened due to the negligence of somebody who owed you a duty of care, there are a number of steps that must be followed to strengthen your claim for a factory accident compensation. You should make sure an account of how your injury happened is written in in your employer´s “Accident Report Book” and keep a copy of this for yourself. This account will help you to give your version of events regarding the timeline of the factory accident.
After this your employer must report your accident and injury to the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) in line with the Safety Health and Welfare at Work (General Application) Regulations 1993 if the injuries from your factory accident can be categorized or if they resulted in your absence from work for longer than three days. Some employers may need to be pushed to complete this part of their obligations as they might think that they can avoid a health and safety investigation by the HSA by not completing this action.
Even though result of a HSA investigation could strongly support your factory accident compensation claim, you should begin your claim before the investigation has been finished. You can take photos of the scene of your accident, collate a list of colleagues who witnessed how you came to be injured and ask if accidents similar to yours had happened before in the same factory.
While this information will may not be required on the Application for Assessment of Damages (Form A) which is submitted to the Injuries Board Ireland it could permit you to receive a full settlement of factory accident compensation long before the Injuries Board Ireland has finished its assessment of your factory injury compensation claim. As you may not be able to complete some, or all, the steps above it is would be a wise to speak with a personal injury compensation solicitor.