Compensation for Tripping on Office Carpet

Since breaking my hip at work I have been unable to work and am losing earnings; can I claim compensation for tripping on office carpet?

Provided that you can prove that the injury you sustained when you tripped over in the office was due to a failure in your employer’s legal duty of care to provide his or her employees with a safe working environment, you should be able to claim compensation for tripping on office carpet. It is also worth noting that apart from being eligible to claim compensation for the pain and suffering you experienced at the time of the accident, it is also possible for you to be reimbursed for any expenses you have concerned as a direct result of your injury, like medical costs – and loss of income.

These “special damages” are included in claims for office carpet trip injury compensation in order to ensure that the victim is in no worse a financial situation than if their accident had never occurred. In order to receive special damages, however, you must retain any receipts and invoices of any expenses incurred and include them with your application for assessment to the Injuries Board Ireland.

There are further supplementary factors to your claim for injury from trip on office carpet compensation that you may qualify for, including general damages for your “loss of amenity”. Loss of amenity refers to the negative impact your injury may have had on your quality of life. Perhaps you cannot perform day to day tasks without some degree of pain, for instance, or you cannot participate in a social or leisure pursuit that you would have enjoyed prior to the accident. In order to receive payment for this element of office carpet trip injury compensation, it is recommended that you maintain a diary to record each time your injury prevents you from enjoying the life you led before the accident.

It is extremely important to have these additional factors to a compensation for tripping on office carpet claim communicated clearly and precisely in the application form for assessment to the Injuries Board Ireland as any omissions or errors can potentially reduce the value of your overall claim. Because there is little room to expand on how the injury has affected your life on either the online or hard copy version of Application Form A, you would be well advised on engaging a solicitor who can ensure that each important element of your claim for injury from trip on office carpet is satisfactorily represented.

Additional benefits of hiring a solicitor to assist with the claims process is that he or she can enter direct negotiations with your employer’s legal representatives in an effort to settle your claim before the Injuries Board make their assessment and before the potential need for court action. By compiling a comprehensive case file from a thorough investigation of your claim, your solicitor will be in the best position to know how much compensation for tripping on office carpet you are genuinely entitled to. Should negotiations fall through, or if the Injuries Board assessment is rejected by one or both parties, your solicitor would be able to represent you in court and his or her presence could be the catalyst that maximises the probability of success.