Office Accident Injury Compensation Claims

By Ian Morris | Updated June 22nd, 2023

9 questions have been answered on this subject - ask us your question

An office job isn’t a role that anyone would list as a dangerous profession in a high risk workplace. However, the relatively safe office is actually a very common location for workplace accidents. Indeed, at Direct2Compensation we regularly hear about injuries in offices that leave employees unable to work or live as normal for a while.

If the accident could have been avoided by the employer taking action to remove a hazard, implement training or provide the correct equipment, an injured worker will likely succeed with a claim for compensation.

Common causes of office accident claims

Most of the office-based accidents we deal with have been avoidable and only happened due to a disorganised approach to health and safety in the workplace. In many companies, the management fail to risk assess things that don’t seem an obvious hazard.

Employers are legally responsible for safety in the workplace and this also applies to their workers and office spaces. The same rules apply to temporary or agency workers as they do to full-time staff. In cases where employer negligence can be demonstrated, an employer will be legally accountable to compensate their workers for injury and losses.

Some of the most common causes of office accident claims are:

Tripping over loose wires and cables that have not been safely secured
Back injuries through lifting without manual handling training
Slipping accidents due to wet floors or spilled substances with no hazard warning sign
Repetitive strain injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome
Electric shocks from faulty or untested electronic equipment
Back injuries due to incorrectly set workstations or faulty chairs

What should an employee do if they are injured?

As with any injury sustained at work, the details of the accident and injuries should be reported to the right person. In the case of an office accident, the office manager will have responsibility for the management of the accident book and incident reporting scheme.

The injured employee should immediately report the details of their accident to this person and ensure that an accident book record is completed. If there is no accident book entry, or your employer won’t let you see it, don’t worry, we can help. If the injuries sustained are sufficiently serious, they should seek medical attention from A&E or an NHS walk in clinic.

Depending on the cause of the accident, the employer should then take steps to ensure that a repeat of the accident is unlikely. For example, if an office worker is injured after tripping on loose electrical wires, the employer should immediately display a hazard warning sign, verbally warn the remaining office staff, and then ensure that the loose wires are secured or placed under a rubber strip to remove the tripping hazard.

If you have been injured in an accident in an office and need advice, you can call us on 01225 430285. We know your rights and how to successfully make a work injury claim, ensuring that the accident has been properly reported and that your compensation is maximised.

As with all claims for personal injury compensation in the United Kingdom, office accident claimants must take action before their claim is statute barred. The current limitation period is set to 3 years from the date of an accident or 3 years from the date of diagnosis with regards to a repetitive strain injury. Whilst claimants don’t have to pursue a claim immediately, it is never a good idea to let too much time pass before starting the process as this can hamper the prospects of success.

For more details on what’s involved, read our ultimate guide to claiming work accident compensation.

Why contact Direct2Compensation for help?

Whether the injury sustained has lead to you being unable to work and lose income, or you’re suffering from ongoing discomfort, there are many benefits to successfully pursuing a claim for compensation.

With our expertise and know-how, you can be assured that you will be instructing the right specialist solicitor to act for you to ensure that your claim has the best chance of success. With our No Win No Fee service, not only will a successful claimant receive compensation for the injuries sustained, but they will also be able to recover any lost income or costs incurred by way of a special damages claim.

It is also important to point out that beside the financial settlement available, claimants may also be able to to access specialist rehabilitation therapies during the claims process. In the case of office accidents, we find that many injuries are commonly of a musculoskeletal nature. Injuries of this type often require time to heal. However, recovery can be achieved more quickly when physiotherapy, osteopathy or massage therapies are provided.

If you have been injured in an office accident and want to find out more about how we can help you succeed with a claim for compensation, call us on 01225 430285 or if you prefer, . In just a few minutes on the telephone with you, we’ll obtain the initial information needed for our solicitors to commence a claim.

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Comments & Questions

Read on for questions and advice about claiming, plus office accident claim examples...

I was hit by a filling cabinet that tilted over and I have been off work. Where do I stand?

Simply put, you have a valid right to pursue a claim for personal injury compensation – both for injury (pain and discomfort) and for any associated losses – such as loss of income or other costs you may have incurred. Any such claim would be against the insurance cover that your employer has to have and would not impact on your employment rights. Our specialist Solicitors can help you to pursue a claim on a No Win No Fee basis.

Hi, in may this year I had an accident at work which has at times left me with severe back pain. Around Christmas last year the company decided to move our work stations into an office. Things seemed fine and workload was increasing, due to this in may I was asked to do a quick repair on some else’s job so moved from my normal place approximately 1.5m to the right to carry this out. After I’d finished I went to get up out of my wheelie chair but the wheels stop on electrical socket cover on the floor and my top half whiplashed to the left. Initially I thought nothing of it as put it down to one of those things do didn’t report in accident book, as time went by pain increased and have been of work since mid June. I’ve had 2 mri’s one in August, got report last Monday which means nothing to me, the received a call from hospital on Thursday to have another one. Whilst there I did ask the radiologist what the report meant. She did mention degenerate changes but some other stuff was in there that only dr who requested mri can tell me, I’m not due to see him till November. I started a claim against employer (no win,no fee) as I do not think there was any risk Assessment done with these socket covers being slightly raised as at Christmas it was quite rushed to get us all on that converted office. Where do I stand as this really is getting me down?

Have you spoken with a specialist Personal Injury Solicitor as of yet? If not, we would suggest that you use our ‘start a claim’ page to make further contact with us. We can then present the scenario you describe to a specialist Solicitor who can consider whether or not you can make a claim against the employer. Certainly, from what you have said, it would appear that there is a case to look at.

As I say above I’m with a no win no fee, who do not seem very personal, hence why I’m getting down about this. Employer has denied liability by saying that I hurt my back at work moving heavy cabinet and not how I described. I have since received risk assessments for office and none was done during or after it was converted to a workshop. I do have photo of where chair In relation to socket, which I’m informed should be either under desk or in walk ways.

My dept moved and my new work space was not suitable due to my pc screen being at a height and off to the left my keyboard and mouse were to the right which meant i was always twisting to the left and started suffering pain in my lower back but then i started to get pain in my right wrist from it always being turned to the right. We had an ergonomics assessments done on the 2nd day of being on the new dept and they said it was not suitable and action needed taking due to the work space being to small and incorrect they even took photos of the work space and advised the pc needed moving but it could not be moved due to the lead being to short so the trunken need to be moved this was back at the start of June.I started complaining of pain in my wrist at the end of July which is now so painful that even simple jobs cause pain that I have been seen by the A&E dept and my own GP which both say is tendon damage probably caused by my work area that i am now seeing physio at work which is not helping. I should also say at this point i also banged the same hand on a door at work which was a fire door being held open by a piece of wood. The physio dept are now thinking of ref me to the upper limb specialist . The trunken has now been moved 3 weeks ago but now the damage to myself has been done and i am unable to take time off from work as i only work there as bank staff my wrist injury was even used against me for not getting a job applied for ( the job i am currently doing ) . I do enjoy my job and am worried that if i take any sort of action against the NHS i could be taken off the bank at the hospital.

You have a very valid claim for workplace injury compensation here. The fact that the risk to your health by the positioning of your new workstation was reported and known by the employer, yet not acted upon would indicate that there has been employer negligence here. As a result of this negligence, you have now sustained injury and have to cope with daily pain and discomfort.

The fact that you are bank staff should not cause you any concern when it comes to pursuing a claim for workplace injury compensation as you will be afforded the same legal rights to make a claim for compensation as any other employee. Further, the fact that you are continuing to work even though you are living with daily pain and discomfort would show the employer that you are a reliable and trustworthy staff member and it is this that your ‘Management’ team will be interested in when they are assigning shifts to bank staff. Indeed, it is unlikely that anyone in your department who is involved directly with your working pattern will even know about any claim.

I would strongly recommend that you do opt to pursue a claim for workplace injury compensation as not only could you receive a settlement award to cover the pain and discomfort, but you may well also be able to access some specialist private rehabilitation therapies as a result of your claim if you were to succeed. This would help you recover more quickly and enable you to live pain free and as you were before this problem developed.

We would gladly help you with your claim and are here to answer any questions you may have. We work hard to give claimants peace of mind and the confidence to pursue their legal right to seek compensation when they have been injured through the negligence of an employer or any other party. You can call us on 01225430285 or email your contact details to us so that we can get in touch with you to discuss your situation in greater detail.

Not sure if this counts but I was at work yesterday and I bent down to get items out of my drawers and as I stood up I whacked the back of my head on a metal cabinet that holds wires in. I instantly felt sick and dizzy, went and saw my boss who took me to see the on site nurse who advised we call 111. 111 advised we go to A&E which we did. I was advised to be under home supervision and not to drive for 48 hours. Do I have a claim? My boss wrote on the incident form as an action that I should be more careful next time.

Hannah

Hi, I am sorry to hear about your accident at work. It sounds like you have suffered a painful knock to the head with concussion. Having dealt with a number of such accident scenarios over the years, I can say that most of the claimants who have been injured as you have, have also reported some neck and shoulder pain, so it could be that you also notice such symptoms.

Whilst your boss may have written on the accident report form that you should take more care next time, one could argue that the location of the metal cabinet next to your work station means that your employer simply advising you that you should be ‘taking more care’ is not a sufficient response. If the cabinet is so close to your work station, it would seem very likely that you will suffer a repeat of this incident (and such injuries) even if you do try hard to avoid it as it is not always practical to avoid the cabinet when trying to work where you have been stationed by your employer.

To this end, your accident is certainly something we would be happy to investigate further with a view to helping you pursue a claim for compensation against your employer. Of course, we would need to speak with you first to obtain some further information and gain a better understanding of your job, the workstation layout and how you are feeling now.

We look forward to hearing from you and helping you further.

Kind regards

Ian Morris