Bartletts personal injury solicitors in Chester recently secured £8,000 compensation for a factory worker who suffered permanent hearing loss due to high level of noise in the engineering plant he had worked in, despite the factory having since closed down.
The gentleman, now in his 50s, had worked in the engineering plant for three years as a machine setter and operator. His daily working environment subjected him to the constant sounds of drills and digging equipment. During that time he was not given any training on reducing the impact of workplace noise or issued with any protective equipment for his ears such as earplugs or ear defenders, as is required under health and safety legislation.
It was nearly three years after he had left the factory that the gentleman realised that he was suffering from severely impaired hearing. It was on the insistence of his wife that he sought advice after she noticed that he did not respond to her calling him and that he needed to turn the television volume up very loud. He had previously put his hearing loss down to the ageing process, but only later was it diagnosed that it was due to working in such a noisy environment over a long period of time.
When he came to see one of Bartletts specialist personal injury lawyers his hearing had drastically deteriorated, leaving him with a constant buzzing noise in his ears diagnosed by his doctor as industrial tinnitus.
The factory where the gentleman had worked had shut down and gone out of business. However, a company’s employees liability insurance continues to cover for such injuries even after a business has closed or been sold. Bartletts solicitors diligently traced some of his former colleagues to gather collaborative evidence to support the case.
Bartletts successfully negotiated £8,000 compensation from the company’s insurers for the workplace negligence. The gentleman used the compensation for noise induced hearing loss to equip himself with a digital hearing aid.
