I Was Injured Due To No Safety Shoes – Can I Claim?

By Cat Way. Last Updated 28th June 2023. Welcome to our guide on no safety boots claims. Health and safety at work requirements should protect you from harm and ensure that your employer exercises a duty of care towards you. Employers are expected to make risk assessments of your workplace and take steps to protect employees, and members of the public, from the risks abidentified. In some cases, this will mean ensuring that you are provided with appropriate personal protective equipment (PPE).

No Safety Boots Claims Guide

Sadly, safety footwear accident claims are all too common. Either inappropriate footwear has been provided or the risk has not been identified prior to the accident taking place. And although it sounds like in the worst-case wearing the wrong shoes will simply be a few bruises, a bad fall can lead to serious and lifelong consequences.

Your employer should provide you with the correct footwear to enable you to perform your job. In addition to providing you with a copy of their health and safety footwear policy, you should be informed of exactly what PPE you are required to wear, when you are required to wear it and the consequences for not doing so.

If you have been involved in a workplace accident where safety shoes, or lack of them, was to blame, you may have a claim against your employer. Read on to find out more about how to start a claim and how our friendly team of advisors can help you today.

You can speak to them any time, day or night, via any of the methods below:

• Call us on 0800 073 8804
• Start your claim online
• Chat with us now about your case using live chat

Select a Section

• • When Can I Claim For A Lack Of Safety Shoes Or Steel Toe Caps?
  • Does My Employer Have To Provide Safety Boots In The UK?
  • Hazards of Not Wearing PPE
  • Common Injuries Due to Lack of Safety Footwear
  • I Wasn’t Given Safety Shoes For A Warehouse Job – How Long Do I Have To Claim?
  • What Different Compensation Types Are There?
  • Average Compensation For Injuries Caused By A Lack Of Work Safety Boots
  • No Win No Fee Accident Due to No Safety Footwear Claims
  • Getting Started With Safety Footwear Claims

When Can I Claim For A Lack Of Safety Shoes Or Steel Toe Caps?

Per the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HASAWA), your employer owes you a duty of care. Per this duty of care, they must take reasonably practicable steps to ensure your safety whilst in the workplace and performing work-related duties. Employers could maintain their duty of care by performing regular risk assessments and removing any potential hazards.

Additionally, the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992 states that if a risk has been identified and cannot be controlled in any other way, then PPE must be provided by your employer. This could include wearing work boots or goggles.

There are various instances where you may need to wear safety boots. For example, you may need to wear anti-slip footwear while working on a building site or steel toe-capped boots in a warehouse. Your employer must also ensure that the shoes are in good condition and fit comfortably. If an employer failed to provide safety shoes for a warehouse job, an injury could occur.  You could make a personal injury claim if you can prove that you were injured due to your employer breaching their duty of care.

Contact our advisors today to see whether you may be eligible for compensation if your employer failed to provide you with safety boots for your warehouse job. They could also answer any of the questions you may have about starting an accident at work claim.

Does My Employer Have To Provide Safety Boots In The UK?

As discussed above, your employer owes you a duty of care. Failing to adhere to this duty is employer negligence. If you suffer an injury in an accident at work due to employer negligence, you might be eligible for compensation.

You may want to know, ‘does my employer have to provide safety boots in the UK?’. As part of their duty of care, your employer is expected to adhere to the Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999. This states that your employer should carry out a risk assessment. If this identifies a risk that cannot be mitigated in any other way, then they have to provide safety boots. This is set out under the Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992.

For example, a risk assessment may identify the need for safety shoes for warehouse employees. If you injure your foot because these weren’t provided, you could be eligible for compensation.

Call our advisors to learn more about health and safety footwear regulations in the UK. They can assess your claim and if it seems eligible, you could be passed onto one of our No Win No Fee solicitors.

Hazards of Not Wearing PPE

Your employer must undertake, at least annually or more frequently if required, a full health and safety risk assessment. Risks that have been identified must be eliminated or controlled. Where all other forms of risk management are unsuitable personal protective equipment should be worn. This is to protect you from injury – or even death.

Some possible risks include:

• Being struck by falling objects or debris.
• Impacts and collisions.
• Breathing in contaminated air.
• Cuts and punctures.
• Chemical burns.
• Electric shocks.
• Exposure to excessive noise or vibration.
• Projectiles or chemicals harming the eyes.
• Slipping or tripping on uneven or slippery surfaces.

Not all PPE is easy to wear. In order to armour the foot and protect it against crushing and puncture risks, safety boots are made of heavy materials and incorporate steel toecaps and midsections. This can make them heavy to wear. This, in turn, can lead to employees asking “can I wear my own safety shoes at work?” or even refusing to wear PPE. Not using provided safety equipment increases your chance of a serious accident and may mean you have no claim, even if you suffer major injury or death whilst working.

Common Injuries Due to Lack of Safety Footwear

One of the most common PPE injuries involving footwear is crushing due to heavy objects being dropped onto the foot. A steel toecap will help prevent crushing from up to 200 joules of pressure. Without safety boots in the workplace, broken bones, torn ligaments and even foot amputation could occur – and in extreme cases, even safety boots may be insufficient to prevent damage.

Slips and trips are also a danger, especially in outdoor working environments. Bruises may form immediately but underlying damage to muscles, ligaments or even the spinal cord or head may take a few hours to a few days to become apparent.

Where the ground is uneven or sharp objects are present there is also a danger of cuts and lacerations. In severe cases toes or even the whole foot could be amputated.

There is also the risk that chemical spills could damage the foot, as could extremes of cold or heat in certain workplaces.

I Wasn’t Given Safety Shoes For A Warehouse Job – How Long Do I Have To Claim?

If you meet the eligibility criteria to make a workplace accident claim for the injuries you suffered due to inadequate safety shoes in a warehouse, you must also ensure that you begin proceedings within the correct time limit.

The time limit for personal injury claims is set out by the Limitation Act 1980, which states that you will generally have three years to start your claim from the date of the accident. But there are some exceptions to this rule.

For example, the time limit is completely suspended for those who lack the mental capacity to make a claim for themselves. If the appropriate capacity is recovered, then the time limit will reinstate on the date of their recovery. Alternatively, a litigation friend could make a claim on their behalf while the time limit is suspended.

The time limit is temporarily frozen for claimants under the age of eighteen. In these cases, the limit does not begin until their eighteenth birthday and expires on their twenty-first. As above, a litigation friend could begin their claim for them while the time limit is frozen.

For more information on time limits when claiming for injuries caused in a warehouse because of no safety shoes, get in touch with our team today.

What Different Compensation Types Are There?

There are two heads of claim, general and special damages. Not all types of compensation will be applicable in some cases.

General damages cover the area of your claim most people will think of when considering compensation. The amount payable is in proportion to the severity of your injuries and the amount to which you are suffering long term effects from them. It can also include an amount of mental suffering.

Special Damages

Loss of earnings can be divided into the amount you have actually lost through being unable to work once injured and an estimated amount to compensate you for loss of earnings in the future, should you be unable to return to work or unable to return to the same career.

Travel expenses include taxis, car parking, petrol money, train journeys and other expenses that you have incurred obtaining medical assistance for your injury that you otherwise would not have needed to incur.

Medical expenses compensate you for the cost of treatments and therapies that you may have had to pay for, and also for any equipment such as crutches or walking aids that you may have had to buy.

A claim for care costs may be made by someone who has had to alter their life in order to care for you as a direct result of your injuries. For example, this could be your spouse or children if you have been unable to care for yourself while injured.

Once a figure for each area has been calculated it is possible to determine the total sum that you will be paid as a result of your claim being successful. To learn what else you can factor into no safety boots compensation claims, please get in touch with our team.

Average Compensation For Injuries Caused By A Lack Of Work Safety Boots

You may be wondering how much your compensation payment could be worth if you’ve been injured due to a lack of safety boots. In this section, we’ll be elaborating on how your general damages payment is calculated. This is the amount that’s calculated with the intention of adequately compensating you for the level of pain and suffering your experience.

For instance, if your job requires the use of steel toe caps, and you are not provided with them, then injuries to your feet and toes could be sustained. They could be serious, or quite minor. More serious injuries tend to be worth more in compensation.

To assist legal professionals in their calculations for general damages for injuries caused by a lack of work safety shoes, there are a few different resources they can turn to. One of the most helpful, aside from medical evidence, is a publication that’s entitled the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). We’ve supplied some figures from the latest edition of the JCG (2022) in the table below. This way you can gain a rough idea of how much your claim could be worth. Get in touch if you’d like us to value your specific injuries. We can even assist you if you work in an office, as safety shoes may also be a requirement in these kinds of settings.

No Win No Fee Accident Due to No Safety Footwear Claims

If you are worried about starting a claim because of the cost of legal advice, then choosing a No Win No Fee provider could be a smart move. We won’t take a single penny from you until your claim is decided. If you win, then your legal fees will be paid from the claim. If you lose you owe us nothing.

Getting Started With Safety Footwear Claims

If you have suffered an accident at work that wasn’t your fault and you weren’t provided with safety footwear, or it wasn’t the right type for the risks you faced, then you could have a claim. To get in touch:

• Call us on 0800 073 8804
• Start your claim online
• Chat with us now about your case using live chat

Thank you for reading our guide to no safety boots compensation claims.