ISSUE 54 EWJ web - Journal - Page 40
Jupp v PMC Construction
(2023) (unreported)
This case involved the successful defence of the personal injury claim following a fall from
scaffolding by a self-employed contractor. It is of significance for insurers and policyholders
because it turned on the extent of the claimant's responsibility for his own safety and to what
extent any causative hazard was brought into being by the claimant himself.
Introduction
Elke de Mariassy, of our Complex Injury team, and
Counsel David Cunnington of Old Square Chambers,
instructed by Zurich Insurance, were successful in a
recent trial in the Winchester County Court leading to
a saving of over £700,000. The case concerned a personal injury claim by the claimant Stephen Jupp (C),
a self-employed bricklayer who had been working on
a construction site at which Zurich Insurance Plc's
policyholder, P.M.C. Construction & Development
Services Limited (D1) was Principal Contractor.
The Judge in an extempore judgment dealt in detail
with the evidence and in particular the measures
taken by D1 to (a) make the site as safe as reasonably
practicable for those working on it and (b) to discourage infractions of the rules and procedures meant to
protect workers on site.
The accident
D1 is a construction company and was Principal
Contractor building houses and flats at a development
in Bracknell. There had been a second defendant, the
scaffolding contractor, but C discontinued against it
just before trial. C was an experienced self-employed
bricklayer, who was engaged by another selfemployed bricklayer to work on site.
The events leading up to the accident were disputed.
C said that he had been told by another bricklayer that
he would be continuing to carry out Damp Proof
Course work. On the day of the accident in 2018 he
was working on a particular block applying Damp
Proof Course and fell from the sixth and highest level
of scaffolding. C said he had gained entry to the sixth
level of scaffolding through an internal, permitted,
access point, that there had been no signs forbidding
access in any event, and he was taken there by one of
the other bricklayers.
C saw that there were 2-3 sections of inner scaffold
board missing. C therefore placed sections of Haki
scaffolding platform down creating a platform on
which he could work close to a corner void. C then
undertook the Damp Proof course work and edged
along the building backwards, pulling the Damp
Proof Course tape and stepping backwards. As he did
so, he lost his footing and fell down the corner void
suffering significant injuries. C argued at trial that the
void should have been covered with a corner plate.
The case
C alleged that there was no inner handrail on the
scaffolding to guard against the void close to the building and it was easy and common for inner handrails
to be removed by people working on site. He argued
that D1's site managers were aware of this practice and
D1 should have installed corner plates on all the corner voids and, if this had been done, the accident
would have been prevented. Within the allegations C
argued that he had not been told there was restricted
access to this level in any event, and that he gained
access via a permitted internal route with no signs
forbidding access.
D1 said that no-one had instructed C to work in this
particular area and that, in any event, it was not in use
and was not available to C or other trades as it had not
been handed over by the scaffolding contractor.
Either D2 had not handed it over to D1 or it was