Employers' liability

We advise insurers, government bodies, local authorities and large self-insureds on the full range of employer liability issues. We are able to draw on specialist teams in the areas of disease, catastrophic injury and health and safety (HSE prosecution) to ensure that our clients only ever receive advice from genuine experts in these areas.

We have significant experience in dealing with all issues in employer liability claims. For instance, disease claims can be particularly problematic for employers, whether because of the risk of a flood of similar claims being brought if one case is settled, or the difficulty of investigating claims relating to alleged work activities years, or decades earlier. Such claims require careful handling by experts alive to the wider risks that these claims can bring in their wake.

Our expertise in employers’ liability also allows us to provide expert advice in public liability claims. Whilst complimentary, it is our knowledge of the key differences in these types of claims that makes us the leader in these fields and ensures that our advice reflects our client’s needs.

Our areas of advice include:

We are not just litigators, we engage with your claims handlers and your insureds pre-litigation to work in partnership with you and add value to the claims process. We ensure we get to understand our client's businesses inside out. We enable employers to radically improve their claims experience by improving the quality of their accident investigation, enhancing the quality of their documentation, showing them how to capture key evidence effectively and improving the employer’s understanding of the litigation process and its obligations.

Through early telephone communication we try to build good communication lines with the claimant’s representatives. Our aim is to drive a case to the earliest and most cost effective conclusion, whether by negotiation or to trial. This means a huge saving for the employer - savings on insurance premiums, on the cost of time spent investigating and defending claims and for the self-insured on outlay in damages and costs.

Work highlights

• Advising in the leading cases of Mattis v Pollock [2002] involving a nightclub doorman stabbing the Claimant and severing his spinal column and Hawley v Luminar [2006] which reviewed in detail when a nightclub is vicariously liable for acts of doormen supplied under an agreement for the provision of security services.
• Advising an employer in a case concerning the issue of an employer’s date of knowledge where an employee was exposed to noise levels above 85dBA before 1 January 1990 - Baker v Quantum Clothing Group and others [2011].
• Facilitating discontinuance of a claim after our investigation established that the Claimant’s fall from height from a club staircase – which resulted in cognitive impairment - had been initiated by the drugs he had taken rather than any negligence on the part of the Defendant.
• Successfully defending allegations of inadequate systems of work and inadequate staffing levels brought against a healthcare trust by a former healthcare assistant. The Claimant claimed damages arising out of an injury whilst treating a psychiatric patient - Desai v North Essex Partnership NHS Foundation Trust [2011].
• Representing a major bank and their insurers in relation to a claim arising out of a firm-wide fun day. The Court considered that the claimant was not acting in the course of her employment whilst taking part and concluded that her employer was not responsible for the residual risks involved - Barber v Fun & Leisure Events Specialists and Bradford & Bingley [2010].