WRULD Claims heard in Courts in England, Scotland and Wales

Hearing(s) - Shaughnessey -v- Bolton Council

Date	Court	Claimant(s)	Task	Injury	Judgment for
8 Jul 2010	Manchester County	Shaughnessey	Handling buckets of water	Medial Epicondylitis	Defendant

Mrs Shaughnessey was employed by Bolton Council as a part-time school cleaner between January 2004 and August 2007. Initially she worked both at a Day Nursery and at a Primary School, but later only at the Primary School. However she made no significant complaint about the work at the Nursery and in any event she had stopped working there before her symptoms started. In about late 2005 or early 2006 she developed pain in her left elbow which was caused by medial epicondylitis, otherwise known as golfer's elbow. She claimed that her condition was caused by the negligence or breach of a statutory duty of her employers, and that as a result she had had to go off work and had not worked since.

In her witness statement Mrs Shaughnessey maintained that the main difficulty that she had in her work was the filling, carrying and emptying of buckets of water at the school. In her evidence at trial she also complained about wringing out mops, an activity which involved gripping and twisting the handle of a long-handled mop, she said she had to do that regularly during the evening shift, and she also made a less specific complaint about the sweeping being generally repetitive. She also referred to moving "heavy equipment" which included a scrubber, a buffer and a dryer. Her complaint was that these were heavy to lift up and down the stairs. In particular the dryer and the scrubber were kept in the cellar and had to be carried up fifteen steps to ground floor level before they could be used.

It was not entirely clear when Mrs Shaughnessey began to suffer symptoms in her elbow. The first relevant reference to elbow pain in her medical records was dated 20th February 2006. This suggested that she complained she had had symptoms for "a few months". HH Judge Platts concluded that the balance of probability was that she first started having symptoms in late, probably December, 2005. It was common ground that she went off work on 31st May 2006. However, it was noted that at the time she went off work her GP records showed complaints relating to both feet, her right hip and both wrists, but there was no complaint recorded by her doctor about any difficulties with her left elbow. It was accepted by Mrs Shaughnessey that she never made any complaint to her employers either about the strenuous nature of the work or of having any difficulties with lifting buckets or moving equipment, nor did she complain about her symptoms.

The only breach of duty HH Judge Platts found proved was a failure to assess the job, but having regard to the evidence he was not satisfied that even if the job had been assessed, that the risk of the type of injury complained of by the Claimant would have been revealed or that anything would, could or should have been done to alter the work so as to reduce or avoid that risk.

Having reviewed the conflicting medical evidence HH Judge Platts was not persuaded that Mrs Shaughnessey's work as a cleaner had caused her golfer's elbow. He suspected that it might have aggravated it but took the view that he Defendant could not reasonably have foreseen any aggravation of her symptoms and in the absence of any complaint about it then by her, they could not reasonably have been expected to do anything about it once it came on.

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Last updated: 14/05/2013