V1.01

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Employee's accident at work attributable to an adjustable ironing board was not caused by any fault on the part of the employer and the system of work was safe. Employers' appeal upheld.

Defendant employers' appeal from the judgment of Judge Harkins on 15/8/96 at the Newcastle upon Tyne County Court awarding the plaintiff £17,559.94 with interest and recoverable benefits in respect of a neck injury suffered at work. The accident arose from the height of a non-adjustable ironing board used by the plaintiff. The judge found that the defendants should at least have given the plaintiff a different type of work and/or attempted to relieve her symptoms by regular job rotation when she complained of stiffness in her neck and pins and needles in her right arm.

HELD: On the evidence there was no obligation on the defendants to have given the plaintiff "a different type of work and/or attempted to relieve her symptoms by a regular job rotation". The medical evidence showed that some adjustment of the work pattern was unlikely to have had any significant beneficial effect and in law there was no obligation at any time prior to January 1993, when the plaintiff was transferred to wholly different work, to provide a different type of work - Withers v Perry Chain (1961) 1 WLR 1314. .The system and method of work, as found by the judge, were safe and it was not foreseeably unsafe to require the plaintiff to work as she did. The defendants were not in breach of any duty as employers, in permitting the plaintiff, who was being advised by her doctor from time to time, to find out whether she could continue to do the safe and proper work which the defendants had available for her.

Appeal allowed with costs of appeal and below.

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