Our client was referred to Thompsons Solicitors in Scotland via his union following a personal injury accident which occurred while he was carrying out his day-to-day employment activities.
The background
As a building standards surveyor for Clackmannanshire Council, our client was required to visit locations to check building regulation compliance. On the date of the ankle injury accident, 2 February 2018, our client was visiting the Jump-n-Joy premises in Alloa, a recreational trampoline facility, as part of his employment duties.
Although the owner and the builder offered to accompany our client, he preferred to carry out inspections on his own. He began to traverse the trampoline area to inspect a fire route and as he descended from a raised platform onto what he thought was a solid structure, his foot went through matting and his ankle twisted. He fell onto a trampoline and passed out.
Our client was taken to hospital via ambulance and was treated in the Trauma and Orthopaedic department.
The consequences
The accident caused our client to suffer a dislocation of his talonavicular joint with associated medial talus and lateral cuboid fractures. The ankle injury suggests a 10% increased risk of arthritis over the next ten years.
Our client did not require surgery but wore a case for eight or nine weeks on his ankle and required physiotherapy.
Although not related to the accident, our client left this employment shortly after he suffered the ankle injury. We felt he would be disadvantaged in the job market as a result of the injury, so we pursued this as part of his accident claim.
Thompsons intimated a claim against Jump-n-Joy under the terms of the Occupiers' Liability (Scotland) Act 1960. Liability was denied by the defender and we therefore raised a court action.
The settlement
Post litigation we received a compensation settlement offer in the sum of £20,000. In the light of the contributing liability issues in the ankle injury claim, we recommended that our client should accept the offer and he was happy to do so.
Settlement was agreed on 6 January 2021.
