Self-Employed electrician awarded £4,000 after electric shock

Mr R was a 32 year old self-employed electrician who at the end of 2014 was asked to go to a home in West Yorkshire where they had a problem with a light that was not working. When he got to the premises and started his work he suddenly had a serious electric shock, as a result of which he was thrown backwards.

Over the next few weeks he suffered from headaches, bruising and a whiplash injury to his neck and back and felt generally unwell and was unable to work for a couple of weeks.

He believed that the cause of the electric shock was that the neutral wire had not been connected to the main meter.

From documents that he had seen on the site, he concluded that the error had been made by an employee of an energy supplier.

Accordingly, on his behalf we made a claim to the energy supplier, who denied liability saying they had not supplied electricity since 2008.

They also cited the fact that the property owner had made a complaint to the Ombudsman but that that claim had been withdrawn and re-directed to another energy supplier.

We spoke with our client who provided photographs which showed the old off peak meter and the property’s fuse box which clearly showed that it was live from the fuse box neutral from the off peak.

On that basis we sought from the energy supplier various documents and when they refused to disclose them we made an application to the Court.

On receipt of that application they provided the documentation and then were persuaded to admit liability.

We obtained a medical report on the client, and also sought on his behalf recovery of his lost earnings for the period of time when he was not able to work.

The energy supplier made an offer £1,500 in full and final settlement of the claim, but after further negotiations they were persuaded to increase their offer to £4,000 plus costs.

When the claim was concluded and the client received his cheque, he sent an e-mail that reads “Cheque received.  Many thanks for your hard work”.

This was another excellent result using our No Win No Fee service.