Trapping incidents: Can the injured party sue for damages?

04 Dec Trapping incidents: Can the injured party sue for damages?

There are many advantages to installing our finger protection products on the doors throughout your school or workplace. In addition to minimising the risk of door-related finger injuries to safeguard the individuals within your building, fitting suitable Fingersafe guards could reduce your liability to help you swerve a potential lawsuit.

In this blog post, we explain how, while shining the spotlight on recently reported cases and any lessons that can be learned.

Your responsibilities and duties

Door injury claims are on the rise, with an increasing number of legal practices actively advertising trapped finger compensation claims. As an employer, headteacher, member of senior management or competent person, you have a duty of care to uphold a certain standard of safety for staff, pupils and visitors.

Under the Health and Safety at Work etc Act 1974, you have several duties to fulfil to protect the health, safety and welfare of those around you. This includes providing a safe place of work, with safe access and exit. This guidance from the Department for Education (DfE) goes further to explain the responsibilities of the competent person within a school setting:

“Schools must appoint a competent person to ensure they meet their health and safety duties. A competent person is someone with the necessary skills, knowledge and experience to give sensible guidance about managing the health and safety risks at the school. This can be someone appointed directly by the school, one or more of its staff, or the employer can arrange support from outside the school.”

Cases for compensation

In order for a trapped finger claim to be successful, the injured party and their representatives must prove that their employer or competent person breached their duty of care, and this breach led to the door-related finger injury in question.

The nature of the injury, its severity and the recovery time will also have a part to play in the level of compensation the affected individual is eligible for. As recent cases have demonstrated however, the average pay out isn’t cheap!

A children’s activity company was fined £1 million after two children sustained significant injuries at their Surrey-based adventure centre. The affected parties were traumatised by the finger injuries, with some digits needing amputation as part of treatment.

In another case, this time in Ireland, €28,000 of damages were awarded to a 7-year-old boy who stopped talking after trapping his fingers in a security gate at his local leisure centre. He was just two years of age at the time. The landmark case spanned several years, with extensive medical evidence gathered to establish the long-term impact of the finger trapping incident.

Along with general damages, special damages are also awarded to cover the expenses and financial losses that resulted due to the finger or thumb injury. This includes lost wages, private medical bills, travel expenses and personal care costs of the injured party and/or the parent or guardian overseeing their care.

Don’t leave yourself liable!

Reducing your liability is as simple as browsing our product range. We have been working hard to reduce the number of door-related finger injuries in homes, schools, workplaces and public sector buildings for more than three decades. Our ever-expanding collection of door safety systems can be installed on 99% of today’s doors, with everything other than sliding doors catered for.

With our finger protectors this easy to fit and this reliable, there’s no excuse not to prevent finger trapping incidents and reduce your liability in the process. Check out the latest Fingersafe® brochure for further details.