Page 1078 - Xmo Strata - Bulletin Archive

Health, Safety & Environmental Bulletin No 400

6 March 2014

2014 No Win-No-Fee Lawyers - Hazard Spots

The number of no-win no-fee claims against retail shop and filling station owners has increased
hugely.

The brief to our employees is clear – “if you see something that a site patron could allege
injured them on a site, then fix it. If you are unable to eliminate the hazard, report it to us
so we can advise our client.”

Our objective, if we can’t eliminate the risk the hazard poses is to establish enough facts for our
clients to make an informed decision as to whether it is reasonably practicable for them to
mitigate the potential hazard on their site; by doing this, we are able to prevent potential
injuries on site and save our clients the cost of defending litigation against them.

In the first two months of 2014, we have achieved 100% participation from our site teams, who
should be very proud to have reported, addressed and mitigated more hazards at source than at
the same period in any year in the company’s history. Of the 98 hazard spots and 2 near misses
we identified in January and February, we eliminated the risk totally in 43 cases and brought
the risk to the attention of others in 52 cases. In total, our teams have identified and made safe
more than 700 hazards on sites we are working on and that is an achievement that has almost
certainly prevented people from being hurt and one that we should all be very proud of.