Boss blaming you for your own accident? Don’t accept it. Ask these five questions and watch them backtrack.
Let me tell you something I’ve learnt after two decades as a personal injury solicitor: when someone gets hurt at work, there’s almost always a scramble to shift the blame downwards.
I’ve seen it hundreds of times. A worker gets injured—sometimes catastrophically and life-changingly – and before they’ve even left the hospital, management is already constructing a narrative where somehow, somehow it was all the injured person’s fault.
“You weren’t paying attention.”
“You should have known better.”
“You didn’t follow procedure.”
Sound familiar?
Here’s the uncomfortable truth that employers don’t want you to know: under UK law, they carry an enormous burden of responsibility for your safety at work. Not you. Them. And when they try to pin an accident on you, they’re often doing so because they know—or strongly suspect—that they’ve failed in their legal duties.
This isn’t about encouraging spurious claims, it’s not about creating a blame culture, and it’s certainly not about helping people who have deliberately done something stupid or reckless. It’s about arming you with the knowledge to challenge a narrative that might be fundamentally unfair and legally incorrect. Because when an employer says “it was your fault,” what they’re really saying is “please don’t look too closely at what we failed to do.”
So let’s look too closely, shall we?
Understanding Your Rights: The Legal Framework
Before we dive into the five questions, understand this: under the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974, your employer has a legal duty to ensure your safety “so far as is reasonably practicable.” This means identifying potential hazards, assessing the risks they pose, and taking steps to eliminate or control them. The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 make this even more specific, requiring employers to conduct risk assessments, provide training and information, ensure proper supervision, and more.
Put simply, even if you made a mistake or took a shortcut, your employer may still be legally liable if they failed in their duty to prevent that mistake from causing you injury. Yes, “contributory negligence” (contributing to your own injury) can reduce the compensation you’d be otherwise entitled to, if an employee shares some of the blame for an accident. But it rarely, if ever, eliminates your claim entirely.
In fact, when we ask the right questions in an injury at work claim, we usually find that the employer’s failures are so significant compared to any employee error, that an employer who blamed an employee for an injury will often very quickly retract that claim.
Question 1: “Was My Training Up to Date, Documented, and Specific to This Task?”
This is where so many employer defences fall down immediately.
I once represented a warehouse worker who was catastrophically injured in a forklift accident. The employer immediately blamed him, and the injured worker himself started to accept that his actions were to blame. “I must have been careless,” he said, “I should have known better.”
When we requested the training records, the only thing they produced was a single sheet with his signature, which they said was training taken three years earlier. It turned out it was a single generic induction training session with no forklift-specific content whatsoever. The worker had never had any forklift training, yet was regularly expected to operate one.
When your employer blames you for an accident, your first step should be to ask them to prove you were properly trained for the task you were doing when you got hurt. Specifically:
- When did the training occur? Training taken years earlier may not count, especially if procedures or equipment have changed since then. Even training the previous day is useless if it wasn’t up to date.
- Who provided it, and were they qualified? Was it by someone with the necessary expertise and formal qualifications?
- What did it cover? Generic health and safety awareness isn’t the same as task-specific training relevant to the activity that caused your injury.
- Was it documented? Proper training should be documented with details of content covered. Just a signature on a blank form isn’t proof of proper training.
- Were you assessed for competence? Did they just give you a training session, or was there any evaluation of whether you could safely perform the task?
- Was it refreshed regularly? Skills fade and procedures change. For many tasks, regular refresher training is a legal requirement.
Question 2: “Was the Equipment Properly Maintained, Inspected, and PAT Tested?”
Equipment failure is one of the most common causes of workplace accidents, but also one of the areas where employers are most quick to blame the operator rather than the machine.
The Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998 (PUWER) require employers to ensure equipment is suitable for its intended purpose, properly maintained, regularly inspected, and used only by trained people. The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical equipment to be maintained so as to be safe – typically meaning PAT tested.
I once represented a cleaner who suffered severe burns when an industrial floor cleaning machine short-circuited. The employer immediately blamed her, claiming she should have been more careful, yet they couldn’t produce any maintenance records, and an independent expert found the machine had multiple safety defects including damaged internal wiring.
When you’re challenging a “your fault” narrative, your questions should include:
- When was the equipment last inspected or serviced? There should be documented evidence of regular maintenance appropriate to the type of equipment and how heavily it’s used.
- Are there maintenance records? A proper maintenance regime isn’t just fixing things when they break, it’s preventing them from breaking in the first place.
- Was it PAT tested? If it’s electrical equipment, when was the last PAT test? Was it within the recommended interval for that type of equipment in that environment?
- Were any defects reported? If you or your colleagues had previously reported problems with the equipment, was it taken out of service and properly repaired, or were you just told to “make do”?
- Was it suitable for the task? Sometimes equipment is used for something it wasn’t designed for, or in environments it wasn’t rated for. This is an employer failure, not a worker failure.
- Were safety features intact and functional? Were any guards, emergency stops, safety interlocks present and working?
Question 3: “Were Your Risk Assessments Actually Followed (and Did They Even Exist)?”
Risk assessments are another place where there’s an almost cult-like belief on the part of employers that of course they have them, how dare you even ask, and any problem must be the worker’s fault.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 say employers must carry out “suitable and sufficient” risk assessments for all work activities—not tick-box exercises, but living documents that genuinely identify hazards and set out control measures.
I represented a construction worker who fell from height and suffered multiple fractures. The employer was able to produce an impressively detailed risk assessment which went into multiple pages listing all kinds of control measures like edge protection, harnesses, and proper scaffolding. But those control measures weren’t in place on the day of the accident. In fact, the risk assessment was a fantasy document that bore almost no resemblance to how the work was actually carried out.
When your employer claims you were at fault for your accident, you should also ask them the following:
- Does a specific risk assessment exist for your actual task? Not a generic risk assessment, but a real risk assessment for the specific activity that led to your injury.
- Were the control measures actually implemented? I’ve seen so many risk assessments that are fine on paper but bear almost no resemblance to the reality of how work is done.
- Were you made aware of the risk assessment? You can’t follow the control measures if you don’t know what they are.
- When was it created or last reviewed? Was it created or last reviewed by someone with real competence?
- Does it identify the actual hazards? If the actual hazard that caused your injury isn’t mentioned in the risk assessment, it’s not a proper assessment.
Watch out for risk assessments that are only created or unearthed after the accident. Retrospective risk assessments are documents that mysteriously come into existence after an accident which somehow, magically identify the hazard, and have control measures that would have stopped it all happening in the first place.
A personal injury solicitor can obtain disclosure of original documents including electronic metadata which will show when any files were first created.
The bottom line: If your employer carried out a proper risk assessment and implemented the control measures it identified, then your accident probably wouldn’t have happened. If they didn’t, they can’t blame you for the consequences.
Question 4: “Was I Properly Supervised, and Were Safety Rules Actually Enforced?”
OK, so it’s all very well for an employer to have all these safety rules, and training programmes, and risk assessments, but if those rules aren’t actually enforced, if they pressure their workers to cut corners, or if supervision is non-existent, then the employer has failed in their duty of care.
The Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999 make this clear, requiring employers to provide “appropriate supervision” for young people or those new to a job.
I once represented a nineteen-year-old apprentice who suffered a catastrophic injury when his supervisor told him to clean a running machine to save time. The employer produced an impressive safety policy with a full page prohibiting this practice, and they claimed the apprentice had just violated their safety rules. But we discovered cleaning machines while they’re running was a routine practice, that supervisors regularly instructed workers to do it despite the written policy, and that production targets actually made it impossible to follow the proper procedures. We won that case, but it’s a good illustration of the crucial point: there’s often a huge gap between official safety policies and actual workplace culture.
Challenging a “your fault” narrative should include the following questions:
- What supervision was in place? Were supervisors present and actively monitoring your work, or were you left to get on with it unsupervised?
- Were supervisors competent? Did they understand the safety requirements? Had they been trained in their own supervisory responsibilities?
- What happened when safety rules were broken? If you or others had previously cut corners, or violated procedures, what was the response? If the answer is “nothing,” then the employer wasn’t enforcing their own rules. You can’t be blamed for breaking rules that everyone knew weren’t actually enforced.
- Were you pressured to work unsafely? This is crucial. Were production targets so demanding that it was simply impossible to work safely? Were you told to hurry up, skip steps, or just make do with inadequate equipment? Were you penalised (formally or informally) for raising safety concerns, or for working more slowly to stay safe?
- What was the workplace culture? Did management lead by example on safety, or was there a culture of “get it done, whatever it takes”? Did workers who raised safety concerns get taken seriously, or were they written off as troublemakers?
- Were you young or inexperienced? Law requires a higher standard of supervision for new or young workers, and we all know it’s often young workers who get the blame.
The key point: you can’t have a written safety policy that you and everyone else ignores in practice, then blame a worker for not following it when they get hurt. If safety rules existed but weren’t enforced, if you were pressured to work unsafely, or if you weren’t properly supervised, that’s an employer failure—not your fault.
Question 5: “Did You Report Safety Concerns, and What Was Done About Them?”
This is an incredibly powerful question for two reasons. First, if the employer ignores safety concerns that have been raised by workers, it is a deliberate decision to put workers at risk. The law (Health and Safety at Work Act 1974) offers strong protection to workers who raise concerns; no worker can be subject to any detriment for raising concerns about safety.
Second, an example: a factory worker lost two fingers on a machine with a broken safety guard. Weeks before the incident, workers had reported that the guard was broken, but management told them to be careful and keep using the machine. This isn’t a machine fault, it’s deliberate negligence turning a machine failure into a life-changing injury.
So what questions do you ask under this heading? Crucially:
- Did you report any safety concerns about the hazard?
- Did other colleagues also raise concerns?
- How were the concerns raised (verbally, in writing, by email, in a safety log)?
- What did the employer say in response?
- How long before the incident had the hazard been present?
- Were you told to keep working even though there was a safety concern?
It’s possible you won’t have personally raised a safety concern, especially if it’s an obvious hazard. If so, it should have been picked up in the risk assessments and management system that any workplace should have in place. But if a safety concern was documented and brought to the employer’s attention and they ignored it or told you to carry on, that is a conscious decision to allow unsafe working to continue. That’s a breach of their legal duties.
Putting It All Together: Building Your Case
Ok, I’ve rambled on about each of the five questions individually, but let’s look at them together and see how a claim comes together.
These five questions cover every one of an employer’s legal duties in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. And for each one we ask: did the employer breach their legal duty? The answer to all of them should form part of a strong personal injury claim.
Here’s a quick example that ties all five questions together. I was representing a delivery driver who had been seriously injured after falling from the back of his lorry. The employer’s defence was simple: it was entirely his fault because he jumped down instead of using the steps.
So we asked the five questions:
Training: He’d had a half-day induction three years earlier. There were no specific loading procedures and no refresher training.
Equipment: The rear steps on the lorry were often muddy, slippery, and never maintained. They had no anti-slip surface despite drivers complaining about this.
Risk assessments: There was a generic “delivery driving” assessment but it did not identify falling from height as a hazard or specify any control measures for this activity.
Supervision: Drivers were unsupervised and their safe working practices were not monitored. The company focused solely on delivery speed, not safety.
Reported concerns: Other drivers had complained about the dangerous steps and reported near-misses, but no action had been taken.
Risk assessments: A risk assessment existed for “delivery driving” but it was generic and did not specifically address the risks of loading and unloading the lorry. It did not identify falling from height as a hazard, despite this being an obvious risk. It specified no control measures for this activity.
When we presented this evidence, the employer’s defence fell apart. The claim settled for a six-figure sum.
What to Do If You’ve Been Injured at Work
I know this is a legal Q&A, but these tips are really important if you or someone you know has been injured at work:
1. Report the accident and gather evidence immediately
Report the accident even if it seems minor – employers must keep an accident book and serious accidents must be reported to the HSE under RIDDOR. Ask for a copy of the accident book entry. Get medical attention as soon as possible; your health comes first and early medical records are important evidence. Take photos of the accident scene, any faulty equipment, and your injuries if possible. Get names and contact details of witnesses and make notes of your version of events while it’s still fresh in your mind.
2. Don’t sign anything without advice
Employers may sometimes ask injured workers to sign a statement soon after an accident. Don’t sign anything until you’ve taken legal advice. It may look like a standard incident report form but could actually undermine your claim.
3. Don’t accept blame
You may feel embarrassed or automatically say sorry after an accident. Don’t. You’re probably in shock and don’t have the full picture of what happened.
4. Keep records
Keep copies of medical records, payslips, receipts for injury-related expenses, and any correspondence with your employer.
5. Speak to a personal injury solicitor
This is really important. Most personal injury solicitors offer free initial consultations and work on a “no win, no fee” basis. A good solicitor will:
6. Advise you about legal options and time limits
Advise you about how to pursue a claim, represent you in negotiations with the employer or insurer, and at trial if necessary.
7. Handle the legal process (obtaining evidence, drafting documents, court procedures, etc. ).
No win, no fee means you won’t pay legal fees if the claim fails. A small proportion of any settlement or award (usually up to 25%) goes to the solicitor as fees. If you win at trial, the other side will also have to pay the solicitor’s fees.
Don’t be put off by the idea that you can’t afford a solicitor. The whole no win, no fee system was designed for exactly that reason – to give ordinary people access to justice.
8. Be aware of time limits
In England and Wales, you generally have three years from the date of the accident (or from the date you became aware that your injury was caused by your employer’s negligence) to bring a claim. In Scotland, the time limit is three years. In Northern Ireland, it’s also three years.
Don’t leave it too late. Evidence degrades over time, witnesses’ memories fade, and documents get lost. The sooner you seek advice, the stronger your case is likely to be.
The Bigger Picture: Why This Matters
This isn’t just about individuals making claims. It’s about a safety culture and accountability in the workplace.
Every year in the UK, hundreds of workers are killed in workplace accidents. Hundreds of thousands more are injured. According to the Health and Safety Executive, there were 135 fatal injuries to workers and 561,000 non-fatal injuries to workers according to the Labour Force Survey in 2022/23.
Behind each of those statistics is a person: someone’s parent, child, partner, or friend. Someone whose life has been changed, often permanently. And behind many of these injuries is an employer who has failed in their legal duties.
Allowing employers to shift blame onto workers is pernicious for a few reasons: The real causes of accidents aren’t addressed: If an accident is written off as “worker error,” the real failures in management systems and control measures that caused it remain in place for the next worker to face.
Safety culture deteriorates: If workers see colleagues blamed for accidents that weren’t really their fault, they become afraid to report hazards or near-misses. They learn that raising concerns is pointless or even dangerous to their job security.
Employers aren’t incentivised to improve: If they can avoid liability by blaming workers, employers have no financial incentive to invest in better equipment, training, or safety systems.
Workers are denied justice: Someone who’s been seriously injured through no fault of their own deserves compensation. They may face years of medical treatment, loss of earnings, reduced career prospects, and life-changing disability. Compensation can’t undo the injury, but it can provide financial security and access to the care and support they need.
Challenging an employer’s attempt to blame you for your own injury isn’t just about you. It’s about every worker who comes after you. It’s about creating a culture where safety is taken seriously and employers can’t shift the blame.
Common Myths and Misconceptions
I hear these myths from clients all the time, so let me just set the record straight:
“I can’t claim because I was partly to blame”
False. Yes, you can make a claim even if you were partly to blame. The idea that “contributory negligence” bars you from compensation is a common misconception. All it does is to apportion blame between the claimant and the defendant, and to reduce the compensation payable to the claimant accordingly. (As an example, I’ve successfully pursued compensation for clients whose awards were reduced by 25%, 30% and even 50% for contributory negligence, but who still came away with six-figure or life-changing sums)
“I can’t claim because I signed a waiver”
False. You can’t contract out of your legal rights to bring a claim for injuries caused by your employer’s negligence. In most cases, any waiver or disclaimer you’ve signed will be unenforceable under the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977. Employers use these forms to try and deter people from bringing claims, but they’re worthless. Don’t be put off.
“I can’t claim because I’m not a permanent employee”
Wrong. Agency workers, casual workers, zero-hours contract workers and even some self-employed workers (depending on the circumstances) can bring claims for work-related injuries. You don’t have to be a permanent employee.
“I can’t claim because the accident was just bad luck”
Rarely (if ever) true. In 95% of cases I’ve seen, it’s not “bad luck”. There’s always a chain of causation that includes foreseeable hazards, avoidable failures and missed opportunities. What looks like bad luck from the outside is actually the inevitable consequence of substandard safety management from the inside.
“I can’t claim because it will affect my employer’s business”
A refrain I hear often, particularly from workers in small businesses and those with a strong sense of loyalty to their employer. But think about it: your employer has insurance to cover these situations. You’re not dipping into their pocket, you’re claiming from their insurance company. And if they don’t have insurance (which is illegal), they’re in breach of the Employers’ Liability (Compulsory Insurance) Act 1969.
“I can’t claim because I’ll lose my job”
It’s unlawful for an employer to dismiss or subject you to detriment because you’ve made a personal injury claim. It’s against the Employment Rights Act 1996. If you are dismissed or subjected to detriment because of your claim, you may have an additional claim for unfair dismissal or discrimination.
Having said that, I won’t sugarcoat it: relationships with employers don’t always survive a claim intact. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don’t. But your health, your financial security and your future are more important than protecting an employer who’s just failed to protect you.
“I can’t claim because it happened ages ago”
You usually have three years from the date of the accident to make a claim. If it’s less than three years since the accident, you can still claim. If it’s more than three years, there are some circumstances where the three-year time limit can be extended – see a personal injury solicitor to find out if this applies in your case.
Red Flags: When an Employer Is Trying to Cover Up
I’m not an expert in criminal investigations, but in my experience, these are some of the red flags that an employer knows they’re liable and is trying to cover it up:
They pressure you to sign a statement immediately after the accident, especially if you’re in shock or pain
They offer you a quick cash settlement before you’ve taken legal advice
They’re evasive about producing documents (training records, risk assessments, maintenance logs etc.)
They change their story about what happened or why
They claim documents have been “lost” or “destroyed”
They threaten you (explicitly or implicitly) about the consequences of making a claim
They suddenly produce documents that miraculously support their version of events but that you’ve never seen before
They try to get you to return to work before you’re medically fit, perhaps to argue that your injuries weren’t serious
They’re more concerned about their liability than your welfare
If you see any of these warning signs, get legal advice ASAP.
The Role of a Personal Injury Solicitor
I’ve mentioned a few times that you should see a personal injury solicitor. I’m a PI solicitor myself, so let me explain what we actually do and why we’re worth paying (or using conditional fees for).
A personal injury solicitor specialises in making claims for compensation for injuries caused by someone else’s negligence. We’re familiar with the complex web of health and safety legislation, the case law interpreting it and the tactics that employers and their insurers use to avoid or minimise paying compensation.
What a good personal injury solicitor will do for you:
Initial assessment – listen to what happened, ask detailed questions and give you an honest assessment of whether you have a viable claim. Not every accident results in a claim, and a good solicitor will tell you if yours doesn’t.
Investigation – gather evidence to support your claim, including:
- Obtaining documents from your employer (training records, risk assessments, maintenance logs, accident reports etc.)
- Interviewing witnesses
- Visiting the accident site
- Obtaining expert reports from health and safety consultants, engineers, medical specialists or other experts
- Researching relevant regulations and case law
Medical evidence – arrange for you to be examined by an independent medical expert who will prepare a report on your injuries, treatment, prognosis and any long-term effects. This report is key to valuing the claim.
Negotiation – most claims settle without going to court. We’ll negotiate with the employer’s insurers to get you the best settlement possible.
Litigation – if a fair settlement can’t be reached, we’ll issue court proceedings and represent you through the litigation process.
Maximising compensation – ensure your claim includes all the elements you’re entitled to:
- General damages for pain, suffering and loss of amenity
- Loss of earnings (past and future)
- Medical expenses
- Care costs
- Travel expenses
- Equipment/adaptions you need
- Any other financial losses caused by your injury
No win, no fee – most PI solicitors work on a conditional fee basis (commonly known as “no win, no fee”). You don’t pay anything upfront and you only pay legal fees if the claim succeeds. If you lose, you don’t pay our fees (though you may need insurance to cover the other side’s costs – we’ll sort this for you).
Support/guidance – a serious injury is traumatic. We’ll guide you through the legal process, explain what’s happening at each stage and take the burden of dealing with insurers and lawyers off your shoulders so you can focus on your recovery.
Conclusion: Know Your Rights, Challenge the Narrative!
If you’re injured at work and your employer’s blaming you, don’t accept it without question. Ask the five questions:
1. Was my training up to date, documented and specific to this task?
2. Was the equipment properly maintained, inspected and PAT tested?
3. Were your risk assessments actually followed (and did they even exist)?
4. Was I properly supervised, and were safety rules actually enforced?
5. Did I report safety concerns, and what was done about them?
In most cases, these questions will quickly demonstrate that your employer failed in their legal duties. They failed to train you. They failed to maintain equipment. They failed to conduct adequate risk assessments or implement the control measures they identified. They failed to supervise you. They failed to address hazards you or others had reported.
Your “mistake” (if you even made one) happened in a context created by these failures. And in UK law, that makes your employer liable.
You have rights. The law is on your side. Employers have extensive duties to protect your health and safety, and when they fail in those duties, they should be held to account.
Don’t let an employer shift the blame onto you to protect themselves. Don’t accept a narrative that makes you responsible for an accident that was caused by their failures. And don’t suffer in silence because you think you can’t do anything about it.
Speak to a good personal injury solicitor. Get advice. Ask the five questions. Challenge the narrative.
Because you deserve better than to be blamed for your own injury when the real fault lies with an employer who didn’t fulfil their legal responsibilities.
Your health, your financial security and your future matter. Stand up for them.
If you’ve been injured at work and need advice, contact a specialist personal injury solicitor for a free, no-obligation consultation. Most work on a no win, no fee basis, so there’s no financial risk in finding out where you stand.
Remember: you typically have three years from the date of your accident to make a claim, but the sooner you seek advice, the stronger your case is likely to be.
Don’t let an employer’s attempt to blame you stop you from getting the justice and compensation you deserve.