An $800,000 success story against a supermarket giant

 

Safe work Australia statistics show that around 11% of all serious injuries suffered by workers across Australia are retail workers.

We represent hundreds of clients who are retail workers and were injured during their employment. Often these injuries are musculoskeletal as a result of heavy lifting or repetitive manual work.

We are proud of our reputation to take on employers and are known to challenge insurers and defendants to maximise the monetary payments of our injured clients.

Our client’s story – an $800,000 compensation result

Our client, Steve (not his real name), suffered debilitating injuries to his right ankle while working for Woolworths as a trolley collector, and was successful in his legal recourse against the supermarket giant, for a whopping $800,000 settlement.

Steve was provided with minimal training. In December 2014, as part of his usual duties, he strapped eight trolleys together and was pulling them out of the trolley bay in a bundle. For anyone who has ever used a supermarket trolley, you can appreciate how difficult this task is as the trolley wheels don’t usually line up for one trolley let alone eight trolleys!

As Steve was pulling the trolleys, he used a lot of force to get them moving and as he stepped backwards, he overbalanced and rolled his right ankle, sustaining a fracture. He later went on to have an ankle fusion.

The matter ran before a jury at the County Court of Victoria. Arnold Thomas & Becker argued that there was no proper training or risk assessment for our client to pull 8 trolleys. Steve was also unaware that a recent risk assessment had been conducted which had advised not to bundle more than five trolleys together, but no one had passed this vital information on to him!

He was also not provided with a trolley strap to safely manoeuvre the trolleys. Arnold Thomas & Becker’s experienced workers comp lawyers successfully argued that the task of pulling eight trolleys was a hazardous manual handling task and the risk to him should have been minimized by providing adequate training. 

The jury awarded Steve $400,000 for his pain and suffering and $400,000 for his economic loss.

Why choose Arnold Thomas & Becker for your claim

At Arnold Thomas & Becker you will find a team of highly experienced, dedicated, personal injury lawyers in Melbourne who know what it takes to win cases, which is exactly what we have been doing for over 50 years. We aren’t afraid to take on the claims that other law firms won’t.

We know that suffering an injury at work can have a catastrophic effect on your health, emotional well-being, quality of life and financial security – we will help ease this burden while we take care of your matter.

With Arnold Thomas & Becker WorkCover lawyers on your side, you can be sure you will get the maximum compensation you are entitled to, including lump sums, medical expenses and weekly payments. We can eliminate the stress and frustration while you get better.

For more information, visit our Workers Compensation webpage.