A passenger air transport firm has been fined after a worker suffered brain damage when she was crushed by hangar doors at Luton Airport.

Signature Flight Support operates a worldwide network of ‘fixed base operations’, delivering support to business and private aviation at more than 200 locations. The services provided include refuelling, hangar storage, maintenance, repair and overhaul.

Suzi Dorbon was employed as an aircraft mover by Signature Flight Support London Luton Limited. She was working on her own, opening the mechanically operated doors of Hangar 219 at Luton Airport in order to move aircraft inside. Each door was made up of three very large sections which could be moved along tracks and were operated using a handheld control panel. On moving one of the doors, she became trapped and suffered crushing injuries that resulted in severe brain damage. She remains in a persistent vegetative state and will require 24-hour care for the rest of her life.

An investigation into the incident was carried out by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE). This found that the company had failed to carry out adequate planning or provide adequate training, written instructions or supervision for the task. The company’s formal risk assessment document did not identify the potential risk of someone becoming trapped in the doors.

Signature Flight Support London Luton Limited pleaded guilty to breaching Section 2 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974. It has been fined £250,000 and ordered to pay costs of £19,483.50.

Speaking after the hearing, HSE inspector Andrew McGill said, “The injured person’s family have been left devastated after this incident. Her husband gave up work to care for her daily and has been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“Employers must provide suitable systems of work, training, information and supervision to ensure safety. If a safe system of work had been in place prior to this incident, it could have prevented the life-changing injuries sustained by the employee.”

The HSE provides general guidance and tools to help businesses assess and control risks in the workplace. See http://www.hse.gov.uk/risk/ for further information. For specific advice on any health and safety matter, please contact  Damian on 020 82636080

When a compensation award is made to the victim of an accident, the actual amount of the settlement is adjusted to take into account the interest the claimant can expect to earn by investing it. This is achieved by applying a ‘discount rate’, or ‘Ogden rate’ to the sum awarded. Traditionally, the percentage rate applied has been linked to returns on lowest-risk investments – typically index-linked gilts. The lower the rate, the higher the compensation award.

The rate also applies to compensation awards by way of damages made by an Employment Tribunal for personal injury where a claimant is found to have suffered ill health – physical or psychological – as a result of unlawful discrimination or detriment. Such an award is often in the form of a compensation payment for long-term loss of earnings.

The discount rate had remained unchanged at 2.5 per cent since 2001. However, in light of the low interest rates available to investors, a new discount rate of minus 0.75 per cent was introduced with effect from 20 March 2017 in an attempt to ensure fairness to those receiving compensation. The move was heavily criticised by the insurance industry, however, and a sharp increase in motor insurance premiums followed. The Government also had to make available additional sums to cope with the knock-on effect of the change on public services with large personal injury liabilities – particularly the NHS.

Following a consultation on this issue, the Lord Chancellor and Justice Secretary, David Lidington, has announced the Government’s intention to revise the way the discount rate is calculated. The proposal is that the rate should be based on ‘low risk’ rather than ‘very low risk’ investments. In addition, advice will be taken from a panel of experts and the rate will be reviewed at least every three years, with changes made when necessary.

If the proposals are approved by Parliament, the revised discount rate is likely to be somewhere between 0 per cent and 1 per cent.

Sharing confidential information with those outside their workplace can have serious consequences for employees, but many will be surprised to learn from one High Court case that such behaviour can even lead to imprisonment (OCS Group UK Limited v Dadi and Others).

The case concerned a cleaning company that had lost a major contract to a rival. As a result, many of those who had serviced the contract on behalf of the company had their employment transferred to the competitor under the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006.

The company was also competing with its rival in respect of other contracts and was concerned that its former employees might divulge confidential information to their new employer. It launched proceedings against one of its former workers, Jagdeep Dadi, on the basis that disclosures of price-sensitive information that he had made to his new employer breached the confidentiality provisions of his contract and the fiduciary duties that he owed to the company.

Mr Dadi did not defend the proceedings and a default judgment was entered against him. An injunction was issued that forbade him from disclosing further confidential information. He was also ordered not to disclose the existence of the order to anyone else and to preserve any relevant hard copy or electronic documents in his possession.

Almost immediately after being served with the injunction, however, Mr Dadi informed a member of the competitor’s management of the order. He also told others about it and deleted numerous messages from his email account. In those circumstances, he admitted four breaches of the order.

Mr Dadi explained that, on receipt of the injunction, he had panicked and phoned his manager, whom he trusted. He did not read the order carefully, nor did he seek legal advice immediately. He was not a criminal but had made a terrible error of judgment. Imprisonment would have a calamitous impact on his family, health and reputation and would gravely damage his prospects of finding work in the future.

In sentencing him to six weeks in prison, however, the Court noted that appropriate punishment was required to mark his deliberate breaches of the order. He had no one to blame but himself and, as the deleted emails were probably irrecoverable, the breaches had had a significant effect on the company. He had expressed remorse and thrown himself on the mercy of the Court, but the sentence was necessary to deter others from similar conduct.

Employment Tribunals (ETs) are at the forefront of the battle to eradicate discrimination in all its forms from the workplace. It is obviously vital that they practice what they preach and that is all the more reason why they are anxious to ensure that even the most vulnerable complainants receive a fair hearing.

One case in point concerned an academic who suffered from severe mental health difficulties and claimed that he had endured disability discrimination, victimisation and unfair dismissal at the hands of a university. His complaints were dismissed by an ET, but he challenged that decision before the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) on the basis that he had not been afforded a fair hearing.

He submitted that the ET should have taken it upon itself to postpone or adjourn the proceedings, in which he represented himself, when the extent of his mental health difficulties became apparent. He had broken down under cross-examination and, although he had been willing to continue, the ET had acceded to the university’s request to cut short the hearing and move straight to closing submissions.

In rejecting his appeal, however, the EAT noted that he had been aware of his right to seek a postponement or adjournment of the hearing, but had not done so. The ET had made appropriate adjustments to enable him to fully participate in the case until he broke down. The decision to bring his cross-examination to a premature end had if anything disadvantaged the university. He had still been able to present his case and, viewed overall, the hearing had been a fair one.