Public Liability

in regards to the insurance need - provided you can prove the employee is competent in his role, the Cards are not necessary for insurance purposes for example A Scaffolder has worked for 30 years and not obtained his CISRS card, however proof of employment in this time can be recorded, in a court of law this will show competency.
CISRS cards are a great source of a labourers proof of their skills
 
Yet again i have never read so much rubbish, no wonder the game is in a mess with people like you in it. CISRS are scaffolders not labourers.
 
Sorry, just cant believe this drivvel.

I wasnt going to discuss this topic as its an ongoing case but just to prove a point.

We had a guy, 30 years+ experience, scaffolders card for years. Member of the companies safety committe. Working with a 2 carded trainees. Whilst dismantling a scaffold a tube goes over, hits him on the head. Makes a statement saying he was wearing all his PPE, 2 trainees do the same, back him up.
I find some CCTV footage of him working, guess what, nothing on him, not hard hat, no his-vis, no harness. The video also covers the accident so yes I know he wasnt wearing it at the eact time of the incident.
Give him the opportunity to change the statement but no, he's positive about remembering wearing it. Show him the video, suddenly get amnesia!!!

Basically, he's lied on a statement, got the other lads to lie on his behalf. Yet we are still looking at a big payout, guess why.....inadequate supervision. Even as a qualified and carded scaffolder of 30 years or more, can you believe this crap.
So sorry, as for not having to hold a card, I dont see how that even comes into the equation in a claim.
Oh yea, and what makes it even funnier, in the video he get one of the lads to run to the lorry to get his hard hat before going to inform the site manager.

Rant mode off.:notrust:
 
Dave_Ja_Vu said:
Sorry, just cant believe this drivvel.

I wasnt going to discuss this topic as its an ongoing case but just to prove a point.

We had a guy, 30 years+ experience, scaffolders card for years. Member of the companies safety committe. Working with a 2 carded trainees. Whilst dismantling a scaffold a tube goes over, hits him on the head. Makes a statement saying he was wearing all his PPE, 2 trainees do the same, back him up.
I find some CCTV footage of him working, guess what, nothing on him, not hard hat, no his-vis, no harness. The video also covers the accident so yes I know he wasnt wearing it at the eact time of the incident.
Give him the opportunity to change the statement but no, he's positive about remembering wearing it. Show him the video, suddenly get amnesia!!!

Basically, he's lied on a statement, got the other lads to lie on his behalf. Yet we are still looking at a big payout, guess why.....inadequate supervision. Even as a qualified and carded scaffolder of 30 years or more, can you believe this crap.
So sorry, as for not having to hold a card, I dont see how that even comes into the equation in a claim.
Oh yea, and what makes it even funnier, in the video he get one of the lads to run to the lorry to get his hard hat before going to inform the site manager.

Rant mode off.:notrust:
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Was involved in a claim a few year ago when one of my scaffs broke an ankle when he stood on a stone where we were working. The insurance investigator assured me that no liability could be attached to the company. Finally 2 years later and without my knowledge he was awarded £45,000.( No problem with that). The problem i had was it was a 50-50 settlement of which £22,500. was adjudged against my company behind closed doors as it were without the benefit of legal representation. At the time the policy excess was £9,000, and the prospect of a rise on the premium. All for an incident i had no control over. When the demand for the £9,000. came, I refused to pay it on the grounds that the whole procedure was carried out in an underhanded manner and non transparent. I threatened if they did not withdraw the demand, I would take a civil case against them. It worked, they withdrew the demand, and my following years premium actually went down, and each year since has continued to do so. It's important that we fight our corner and not let them rip us off.
 
Interesting Brandy, just goes to show it pay's to fight your own corner.
 
Things are out of my hands in our situation but as far as I can see the insurance comapany are not even going to put up a fight. Personally I think we have a case to counter sue the claimant for loss of earnings as we cant now work for the contractor involved, so we've lost about £100,000 worth of trading a year with them.

Better get out the vaseline I guess.
 
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I think what happens if say you put a claim in and you was awarded 100k for an accident but you dont have the cards you only recieve 40%..The same thing happens if say you didnt have your PPE on and you got hurt you would only recive 40% of the total amount awarded..Hope that helps you
 
The claim is typical of what we see daily. The employer provides all the necessary equipment for the employee to perform their job, the employee chooses to go outside of this (not wearing hard hat) and because his supervisor or person above him did not remind him to wear it, insurers would entertain the claim.
Put this on the other foot, you have a Scaffolder working for you for over 20 years, does his job without question, one day he falls from the scaffold and breaks his leg - You have done everything possible to prevent this, but your insurers refuse to pay leaving you with the bill, would this be a preferred outcome?
 
If a scaffolde was to fall off the scaffolding it would generally be because he was not working to SG4:05, its pretty hard for a scaffolder these days to justify why they would fall off if they were employing advanced guardrails system or working to current guidance of SG4:05 so that argument also does not stand up. This is of course down to specific risk assesment and method statements being in place.

As to trying to prove competence by merley providing a 'testimony', I seriously doubt that this would stand up. Try standing in front of a judge and tell him the guy is qualified because he has worked for you for 5 years or whatever....wheres the proof what his duties were, what sort of woark has he carried out. There is simply no proof to substanciate this claim.
 
From an insurance perspective, it would be very hard for an insurer to dismiss a claim for injury or third party damage, purely on the basis the Scaffolder did not hold relevant cards. You may face action from the HSE however.
The example given was purely an example.
 
MorganLaw said:
in regards to the insurance need - provided you can prove the employee is competent in his role, the Cards are not necessary for insurance purposes for example A Scaffolder has worked for 30 years and not obtained his CISRS card, however proof of employment in this time can be recorded, in a court of law this will show competency.
CISRS cards are a great source of a labourers proof of their skills
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I dont agree, to show competance you have to demonstrate qualifications, training and experience.This is the definition-the state or condition of being sufficiently qualified to perform a particular action. To achieve this condition, one must possess the proper knowledge, skills, training, and professionalism.
 
Raymond 1969 said:
I think what happens if say you put a claim in and you was awarded 100k for an accident but you dont have the cards you only recieve 40%..The same thing happens if say you didnt have your PPE on and you got hurt you would only recive 40% of the total amount awarded..Hope that helps you
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Ive been through the compensation process and I have to say its very fair in this country. In the States people are awarded "punative" damages ,thats to say punishment damages passed down by the judge for ridiculous amounts without any particular reasoning behind them i.e. $10,000,000 for cutting your finger in Mcdonalds just because they can afford it.

In this country it works differently, If your hurt physicaly you claim for pain and suffering and general damages, the solicitors have a book telling you what bits worth what, you claim for loss of earnings but you must mitigate your loss i.e. don't take the p*ss and claim for things you never had or didn't do before. If you can no longer do the job you loved because of you injury's you could put in a "Smith v's Manchester" claim, this is a precedent brought by Mr Smith verses Manchester fire brigade when injured doing the job he loved ,now common place. If your really hurt and can no longer work as a scaffolder and have to take a job for less pay you can claim for "Future loss of earnings" this is where you hear about people being paid out big money , six figure sums. If you earned 40k per year as a scaff and now earn 20k a year doing something else, you can claim the difference for a % of your working life,this is calculated using something called the Ogden tables and can run into big money but is very fair.

If your hurt at work and have ignored all the rules your jointly culperable for your injury's,but if your hurt and its not your fault, it must be somebody elses fault therefore a legitimate claim regardless of anything else, in a lot of cases insurers realise the cost of legal representation,disbursements,professional costs etc and will settle before it gets that far regardless of who's to blame,what qualifications that person may have its a money thing and they are mitigating their losses at an early stage and sometimes spread the cost between the pursueing insurer and the defending insurer 1/2 and 1/2

The whole idea of compensation is to restore the injured person, back to the position they were in before the accident .

Bit long winded but I hope it made things a little clearer.
 
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