All depends what your contractual arrangements say regarding absence / sick payand whether or not any precedents have been set within the business - really an HR issue.

Remember accident claims are there to recoup loss of earnings (not only pain and suffering) so if you only provide the absolute legal minimum then it is more likely a claim will be lodged.

Well that is down to him.

If he wishes he can apply to one of those where there’s blame there’s claim companies and they will send you a standard letter. They will, ask for every piece of information that they can think of  including details of SOP, risk assessments, what was discussed at the last H&S committee,( including if sandwiches were provided-joke) , and anything else they can think of. The aim of this is to intimidate you into thinking that if you did not have every single thing in place you are liable. They will also list every single piece of legislation they can think of despite the fact that you can no longer sued for breach of statutory duty if the duty arises from H&S laws.

Don’t panic –contact your insurance company, they will sort this out. They might decide to pay up to cut their losses or they might decide to fight.

The only thing the injure person can sue for nowadays is negligence on the part of the employer.

They need to prove that:

• There was a duty of care owed- which in the case of an employee is a given
• That there was failure in that duty- and if you have all of the documentation you say you have would be difficult for the claimant to prove
• And that failure lead to that loss- ie he fell off the ladder because something you did wrong.

Even if the judge finds for the claimant  when they set the level of compensation t they have to take into account the contributory negligence of the claimant, so even if they found that you missed something, the judge is still likely to say that it was, let’s say, 75% the claimant’s fault and reduce the compensation accordingly. The level of compo as a result might not even cover their legal cost.

So what you need to do is

1. Sit tight and not admit any sort of liability
2. Wait until the injured party makes claim- he has three years from the time of the accident
3. Talk to your insurance company who may pay the guy something, which might be more that they would get it they claimed (taking into account the level of contributory negligence) but would be without the faff of going to court.

As previously said, this may well be specified in the contractual arrangements. Sick pay is usually part of an employee handbook or similar.

In the absence of anything there a couple of alternatives present themselves: i) pay the SSP only and wait for the claim or ii) pay full wages and wait for the possible smaller claim.

In either case a civil claim will be costly as this will involve not only much management time but expensive costs of the insurers and lawyers, whether a successful claim or not. The second alternative may well lessen the likelihood of a civil claim being lodged but you will know the prevailing culture at your workplace.

In either event your insurers should be notified.