Case ne
News
Claims Magazine‘s case news section is edited by Azmina Gulamhusein. She is a solicitor, freelance journalist and editor of The Encyclopaedia of Forms and Precedents
Case news A nursery is liable to an injured employee for providing a defective cot
employment, the claimant disclosed that she had a pre-existing back problem and was receiving ongoing physiotherapy.
A
Case details On 2 June 2009, the claimant was working in the baby room
when she lifted a six or seven month old baby into a cot. The mechanism for dropping down the side of the cot was broken and this had been reported to various managers and senior staff. It was necessary to lean over the defective cot to place the baby on the mattress and the claimant experienced some sharp back pain while doing so. She then sat on a chair, reached her arm over the side of the
cot (which could not be lowered) to soothe the child and twisted her back. A few days later, the claimant was admitted to hospital with a
major disc prolapse and suspected cauda equina syndrome (an uncommon compression of the nerves at the end of the spinal cord). She made an incomplete recovery from spinal surgery, required a wheelchair due to the restricted movement in her lower body and did not return to work. The defendant argued that the claimant had undertaken a
straightforward task and would have developed cauda equina syndrome in any event as her spine was degenerate.
Te verdict Analysing the accident, the High Court found that it involved two
20 /Claims Magazine/Issue 11
ileen Cooper, the claimant in Cooper v Bright Horizons Family Solutions Ltd [2013] EWHC 2349 (QB), was employed by the defendant as a nursery nurse. When taking up
stages: the first was when the claimant suffered back pain on lifting the baby into the cot and the second was when she heard a cracking noise in her back on sitting down with her arm over the cot. The major disc prolapse occurred while the claimant was
leaning over the cot to put the child on the mattress. Further disc material was then extruded as she sat on the chair attempting to soothe the baby. There had been a breach of the defendant’s absolute duty
under regulation 5(1) of the Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 to maintain the cot in an efficient state, in efficient working order and in good repair. If the claimant had been able to lower the side of the cot, she could have bent her knees and put the baby down without straining her back. Regulation 4 of the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 had also been breached because there was a real and foreseeable risk of injury if the claimant lifted the baby into a faulty cot. The question of what involved a risk of injury had to be context- based. Although lifting a child into a cot was an everyday activity, proper procedures were necessary in the context of a nursery. However, the defendant did not provide appropriate manual handling training or follow its own guidance for employees with known back problems. “But for” the claimant leaning over the broken cot, she would
not have sustained a major disc prolapse resulting in cauda equina syndrome. Her long history of back pain was wholly different from this rare condition and it was improbable that she would have developed it without being injured at the nursery. Judgment was therefore entered for the claimant with damages to be assessed. ●
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