Pulled Muscle at Work – A Guide to Claiming Compensation

A pulled muscle (or muscle strain) can be a very painful injury that can have an impact on your ability to work. Depending on which muscle injury you’ve sustained, you might also find it difficult to drive, play sports or carry out your normal family activities. As such, if you’ve suffered a pulled muscle at work following an accident that was not your fault, you may wish to seek compensation for your suffering. In this guide to claiming compensation for a pulled muscle at work, we’ll explore when it is possible to file a claim and how the process works.

Our team is here to support you if you are thinking of filing a claim. We offer a free initial consultation where a specialist will assess your claim and provide legal guidance about your next steps. If they believe that you have a feasible claim, you might be connected with one of our accident-at-work solicitors. Additionally, if they agree to represent you, you’ll only have to pay for their work if you are compensated because of their No Win, No Fee service.

To discuss your muscle strain injury with one of our legal advisors, you can:

• Call for free on 0333 241 2519.
• Connect to our live chat service night or day.

We’ve hopefully answered a lot of your questions about claiming for a pulled muscle at work throughout this guide. If you need to know anything else, please contact one of our specialists today.

What Is a Pulled Muscle Injury?

Your muscles form part of your musculoskeletal system. They work in conjunction with your tendons, bones and ligaments to support your weight and to enable you to move.

A pulled muscle is another name for a strained muscle. They occur when your muscle fibres are damaged by overexertion or overstretching.

Some common symptoms associated with a pulled muscle at work include:

• Varying degrees of pain.
• Swelling and bruising.
• Tenderness when the muscle is touched.
• Restricted movement.
• Muscle weakness.

In some cases, you can manage a pulled muscle at home but it’s always worth seeking advice from your GP first. That’s because in some cases, they might suggest that physiotherapy is required or prescribe painkillers to ease your pain. If a muscle is completely torn in an accident at work, you might need surgery before it can begin to repair.

Types of Muscle Strains We Can Help With

Pulled muscles can occur in any part of the body where muscle tissue is present. Here’s a list of some commonly pulled muscles at work we might be able to get compensation for:

• Hamstring muscle.
• Quadriceps muscle.
• Calf muscle.
• Groin muscle.
• Lower back muscles.
• Neck muscles.
• Rotator cuff muscles.
• Biceps muscle.
• Triceps muscle.
• Abdominal muscles.
• Chest muscles.

Each of these muscle strains can vary in severity, from a mild stretch or tear to a complete rupture. If you’ve sustained any of the above please contact our legal advisors now to see if you’re entitled to compensation.

Can I Claim Compensation for a Pulled Muscle at Work?

The first thing that needs to be established if you’re to claim compensation for a pulled muscle at work is that your employer owed you a duty of care. In actual fact, this is normally fairly simple as all employers are bound by the rules of the Health and Safety at Work Act 1974. If your employer failed to meet their obligations and you’ve pulled a muscle as a result, their negligence could enable you to begin a claim.

Some of the ways employers could reduce muscle injuries at work and meet their health and safety obligations include:

• Conducting a risk assessment of the workplace regularly.
• Providing manual handling and other forms of health and safety training to all staff.
• Consider using lifting devices rather than asking staff to move heavy or awkward loads.
• Provide personal protective equipment (PPE) where risks can be reduced in other ways.
• Keep the workplace from slip and trip hazards as much as possible.

If the employer does not uphold their duty of care towards your safety, it could entitle you to compensation for any resulting injuries.

As such, you could be entitled to claim compensation for a muscle strain when:

• You were owed a duty of care by your employer at the time you were injured.
• You were involved in an accident or incident caused by your employer’s negligence.
• As a result of that negligence, you have been diagnosed with a pulled muscle injury in the last three years.

If you would like a legal advisor to check if you might be eligible to start a claim, call the number above now.

What Types of Negligence Could Lead to Muscle Strains?

Here are a few examples of how a negligent employer could cause  staff to sustain muscle strains at work:

• Lifting Heavy Objects: If you haven’t been trained on safe manual handling techniques, it’s possible for employees to sustain a pulled back muscle at work when moving heavy or awkwardly shaped loads.
• Slips, Trips and Falls: For instance, you could pull a muscle in your groin if it was stretched too far because you slipped on a wet floor as hazard signs were not in place.
• Falls from Height: It is possible for traumatic injuries to result in a pulled muscle. For instance, you could strain the muscles in your ankle if you fell from a ladder because one of the rungs was loose.
• Repetitive Motions: If your job involves repetitive actions such as typing, working on an assembly line or similar, you could develop muscle damage over a prolonged period of time.
• Heavy Machinery Accidents. If heavy machinery is faulty or damaged, it can result in sudden jerky movements. If you are operating the machinery at the time, you could pull a muscle while trying to control it.

Whatever type of accident has caused you to pull a muscle, please feel free to contact us if you believe that you are entitled to start a compensation claim.

What Should I Do if I’ve Strained a Muscle in the Workplace?

If you have suffered any type of muscle strain at work, some of the following steps can be helpful if you intend to claim personal injury compensation:

• Inform your employer about how your injury occurred. Also, ask for it to be logged in the company’s accident report system
• Visit your GP so that your pulled muscle can be assessed and diagnosed.
• Follow the advice of your GP to help you recover and let your employer know about any work-related suggestions your GP has made.

These steps can help your employer to make any changes necessary to prevent similar accidents in the future. Also, they could provide you with some evidence to support a pulled muscle claim if you go on to make one.

What Evidence Can Be Used for Pulled Muscle Claims?

If you claim compensation for a pulled muscle at work, you will need to prove how your strain occurred, its severity and why your employer is liable. Here are some examples of the types of evidence you could provide:

• Contact information for colleagues or customers who saw the accident happen.
• Video footage of your accident caught on a mobile phone, CCTV camera or bodycam.
• A copy of an accident report form to prove where and when you were injured.
• Copies of your GP or hospital records to confirm which muscle was pulled.
• Photographs of any visible symptoms (swelling, redness, bruising etc.).

The more evidence you can supply, the better the chance you’ll receive the right level of compensation if your claim is successful.

What Time Limit Applies to Pulled Muscle Injury Claims?

The general time limit for making a claim for compensation, including for injuries such as pulled muscles sustained due to an accident or negligence at work, is three years. This means you have three years from the date of the incident that caused the muscle injury or from the date you became aware of the injury to initiate legal proceedings for a claim.

This three-year limitation period is outlined in the Limitation Act 1980 and applies to most personal injury claims, including work-related injuries, public liability cases, and other accidents.

How Much Compensation for a Pulled Muscle at Work?

The severity of the suffering caused by a pulled muscle will vary from case to case. As such, so do compensation levels in successful personal injury claims. For instance, compensation for a severe back injury at work would normally be higher than for a moderate back strain.

General damages could form part of your settlement if your claim is successful. They aim to cover the pain, suffering and any loss of amenity your pulled muscle has caused. Therefore, your solicitor will arrange for a medical assessment to be carried out by an independent expert as part of the claims process.

Special damages could also form part of any settlement you receive. These can cover financial losses linked to your pulled muscle injury including:

• Travel costs.
• Lost income.
• Rehabilitation costs.
• Future loss of earnings.
• Care and support costs at home while you’re recovering.

If your claim is taken on by one of our work injury solicitors, they’ll provide a compensation estimate once they’ve reviewed your case in detail.

Can I Claim Compensation for a Pulled Back Muscle if I’m Only Part-Time?

The type of employment contract you have doesn’t affect your eligibility to claim for workplace accidents. So long as you can prove that your employer’s negligence has led to a pulled muscle injury, you could be entitled to claim compensation from them.

That is true for subcontractors, agency staff, the self-employed, zero-hours workers, consultants and full-time employees.

Please get in touch if you’d like us to check if you could claim for a pulled muscle at work.

Do I Have to Use a Solicitor When Filing a Claim?

There is no law that forces you to find a personal injury solicitor to claim for a workplace injury. However, such claims are often contested and can involve quite technical legal and medical evidence. Therefore, taking on legal representation might be a good idea. As well as benefiting from their legal expertise and training, if you work with one of our solicitors, you might have a better chance of being compensated correctly.

If your claim is taken on, some of the ways in which your solicitor could help include:

• Finding the evidence needed to prove your case.
• Dealing with your employer’s insurers so you don’t need to speak to them.
• Ensuring all paperwork is completed correctly and filed on time.
• Negotiating on your behalf if any part of the claim is contested.
• Sending you regular updates about how things are progressing.

What’s more, our solicitors provide a No Win, No Fee service for all pulled muscle injury claims they take on. That means that you:

• Won’t pay them for their work upfront or if the claim is lost.
• Will only pay their success fee if the claim is won.

Success fees are a fixed percentage of your compensation. Your contract (or conditional fee agreement) will explain what percentage you’ll pay if the claim is won. For your protection, the law sets a 25 per cent maximum for success fees so you’ll retain the bulk of any settlement you receive.

Do Work Injury Claims Go to Court?

While courts can decide upon the outcome of work injury claims, in our experience, this is quite unlikely to happen. In the vast majority of cases, insurers, employers and lawyers will come to an amicable agreement so that court costs can be avoided.

While that is true, your solicitor could schedule a court hearing for a pulled muscle claim if:

• They believe that your case is strong enough to win; but
• Your employer has denied liability for your accident; or
• They won’t offer a fair settlement for your injuries.

Your solicitor will of course support you throughout the process if your claim does end up in court.

Contacting Us About a Pulled Muscle Claim

You can contact our team if you’d like us to assess your claim on a no-obligation basis. To do so, you can:

• Call 0333 241 2519 to speak with a legal advisor.
• Contact us at any time via our live chat service.

While you won’t be under any pressure to claim compensation for a pulled muscle at work with us, if you decide to do so and your claim is accepted, your solicitor will act on a No Win, No Fee basis.