BB, who said they were unsupervised?

Without wishing to sound like I'm preaching do you realise the amount of shit your company would be in if the 'trainee' on the 'runaway FLT' had seriously injured or killed someone.

I'd review your H&S practices as well as cough up for the damage.

Yes flowers and two great big corks on the end of the forklift forks.

Am I the only one to get halfway through that scentance and read something entirely different?

nope 😉

KingT's right – take it as a lucky escape and do something to make sure it can't happen again…

I'm sure they were supervised. Just the supervisor had been mown down by a runaway forklift.

Its an insurance Job. Your public liability insurance will pay it.

Its an insurance Job. Your public liability insurance will pay it.

Not worth claiming for £500 IMO.

forklift fail

Of course you pay up – or have her car repaired to a satisfactory standard.

You cannot contract out of negligence.

Even better idea:
Spend the £500 welding large spikes to the front of the damaged car, create a makeshift arena in the car park, charge £20 a ticket, and let the employee and the truck driver ballte it out to the death.

I'll have the first 2 tickets please.

DrP

Technically you are liable for the damage under the tort of "vicarious Liability" where a servant or emplyoyee causes damage through negligence whilst engaged in your employment.

So the emplyee can claim against your commercial insurance. But then the insurers will want to know about all the H&S stuff, ie supervising, certificates, and it will waste more time of yours than its really worth, along with a naffed off employee.

side note – supervision of FLT driver. I've done it before so speak from experience…

I'm sure the driver was supervised, but unlike a car there is no space for dual controls, and the supervisor is not allowed to ride on the truck for obvious reasons. It sounds like the FLT driver is a muppet but also i'm sure he was properly supervised.

The damage to your roller shutter will be more than £500 though….

Ultimately it doesnt matter how small the damage is – if it was caused by you, you fix it. Just because you don't value your vehicles enough to worry about a small scratch doesn't mean everyone has the same values.

£500 is a small amount to pay if she decides she can't work for you anymore and up's and leaves and you have to go through a much more costly recruitment process.

I would resolve this matter promptly and to the full satisfaction of your employee, otherwise your company will end up in deep s**t.

I would have had no hesitation in contacting my own insurers there and then, it would have been well within my rights, and if you had tried to get into any negotiation about the extent of the damage, then I would have been on the phone before you had taken your next breath.

What for a miserly £500, that is a nothing to get any sort of body work/ paint work done to a car. All in all count your blessings it wasn't worse and someone wasn't injured or killed and take use the incident as a learning opportunity.

(whisper)Death Battle…(/whisper)

DrP

daisy duke as someone who fixes forklifts for a living its pretty simple pay up and be VERY nice because if h&s executive turn up to investigate you will be i a world of SH*T,cause i really hope you have your forklift serviced twice a year and you have a thorough examination carried out once a year if not your breaking the law fact