Chicken worker fails in manual handling case
20 Jan 06
Trussing carcases on production line not protected by Manual Handling Regulations
A factory worker who claimed she suffered wrist injury through handling chickens on a production line has failed in her claim for damages.
Margaret Hughes had brought an action against Grampian Country Food Group Ltd after claiming she developed carpal tunnel syndrome which was aggravated by her work at the defenders' Cambuslang factory.
Ms Hughes claimed that her injury resulted from her work on the trussing line, in which she had to reach a chicken carcass from a conveyor belt onto her workbench, apply elasticated string after arranging the legs and wings, and then toss the carcass on to another conveyor.
After a proof before Lord Menzies in the Court of Session, Ms Hughes' counsel dropped her common law case but argued she was entitled to succeed under the Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992.
Lord Menzies said he was satisfied on the evidence that there was a sufficient link between Ms Hughes' work and the worsening of her symptoms. However he ruled that the operation she had to perform was not a "manual handling operation" caught by the regulations, which required "any transporting or supporting of a load".
Although the transferring of the chickens to and from the conveyor belts might have counted, he continued, that was not what had caused the injury. What happened in between was not part of the same manual handling operation.
"It would be straining the ordinary use of language to describe this manipulation as the transporting or supporting of a load, and it would be contrary to common sense to describe all the activities from the lifting of the carcass from the upper shackle to the workbench, through the manipulation of the legs and wings and the trussing of the carcass, to the throwing of the carcass onto the lower conveyor belt, as one operation of transporting or supporting of a load", he concluded. For this reason the action had to fail.
Lord Menzies' opinion can be read at http://www.scotcourts.gov.uk/opinions/2006CSOH5.html .