tracker code

Expert Witness Services – Covid Claims

Expert Witness Services

HSE update COVID-Secure Workplaces

What is an expert witness?

An expert witness is a professional or suitably qualified person with such specialist knowledge, skills, or experience in a particular field or discipline that they are beyond that expected of the average competent person.

Our Expert Witness Service provides expert opinion legal reports for both quantum and liability to claimant and defendant solicitor and insurers.

For disputes regarding health and safety in the workplace, we can provide an expert witness to provide an impartial opinion to a court or tribunal on particular aspects of occupational hygiene; environmental issues; compliance with Occupational Health &  Safety legislation; compliance with regulations and best practice; Covid-Secure Workplaces; infection prevention & control; adequate ventilation provision; air cleaning mitigations; nosocomial infections eg hospital-acquired infections or in the workplace or from transport systems.

COVID-19 is a global problem and so we have assembled some of the foremost experts from around the globe to help others to resolve many of the risks, challenges, and disputes that arise from NOT ONLY COVID-19 but other pathogenic infection issues.

There are risks from commercial disputes and personal injury disputes.

  • We can act for the Claimant; or
  • We can act for the Defendant; and,
  • We can help you to better control or eliminate risks and disputes in the first place.

 

Covid impact on litigation risks.

COVID-19 and Long-Covid threaten the health & safety of people across the globe and cause intense disruption and distress across all sectors of the economy. Coronavirus is referred to as endemic, and here for the foreseeable future because it is ever-evolving. Private and Public Sector organizations need to continually adapt and evolve to mitigate risks, accordingly.

The pandemic has spurred a substantial number of litigation filings that range from single-claimant employment claims to £multi-billion breach of contract cases around the world. Litigation is now starting to manifest in the UK. However, these represent only the beginning; COVID-related litigation will increase drastically and be with us for years to come.

In terms of pure economics, Covid outbreaks now regularly cause disruption to commercial operations and potentially, the business-critical risk to businesses of not being able to perform their contractual obligations to their clients. During this pandemic, most have taken a rounded view to work through disruption and delays with the supply chain but depending on the quantum, is not always viable because of the consequential impact when one is reliant upon close supply chain inter-dependencies.

In these uncertain and challenging times of pandemic, not only does Covid-19 represent the most significant occupational health & safety hazard to occupants within buildings that the world has ever seen before at this scale but also, in certain settings, other infection risks have re-emerged and sometimes, overlooked. There has been a rise in morbidity from other more traditional pathogenic hazards, particularly within clinical, care and, food manufacturing environments.

Buildings have the power to make us sick or keep us well. Airborne pathogens such as Coronavirus, are difficult for those in control of conventional environments and operations to understand and, unfortunately, therefore, mitigate their risk.

The challenge faced by Employers and those in control of buildings or transport systems is that the Health & Safety Laws and all the associated Regulations have not changed; indeed, supplementary guidance and regulations are regularly reviewed, updated, and issued to help you to protect workers and occupants indoors from Covid-19, as more data has become available. The HSE guidance on ventilation for keeping workplaces safe from COVID-19 is quite different today, as we begin 2022, than it did at the end of 2020, for example.

We continue to observe outdated workplace risk assessments that make no mention of the critical need to provide adequate ventilation which, given that Covid is, principally, an airborne transmitted illness, and the primary importance of that or other mitigations, such as germicidal ultraviolet devices or HEPA air cleaners, can only be described negligent. These firms are at risk of personal injury claims too.

Persons in control of buildings and transport are now at greater risk of non-compliance and dispute if they are not controlling or eliminating or preventing risks in so far as is reasonably practicable and “the maintenance of it in a condition that is safe and without risks to health”, to quote the HSWA-1974.

Independent Expert Assessments.

Prevention is the best way to avoid disputes and so, we offer employers and those in control of buildings or transport an independent assessment of their occupational environments, undertaken by our unique multi-disciplinary team. This can lead to the ability to make interventions to avoid claims occurring in the first place. Unfortunately, if disputes cannot be avoided, then expert opinion is going to be necessary for areas of technical or scientific disagreement.

Our expert assessments and reports investigations can include:

  • Audit
  • Human Factors
  • General Building arrangements, design and engineering controls
  • Covid-19 Risk Assessments
  • Ventilation and Environmental Risks
  • Operational Risks/Mitigations
  • Accident/Incident Investigation
  • Infection Prevention Arrangements
  • Covid-19
  • Other Respiratory Diseases and Occupational Cancers
  • Compliance with relevant Standards and Regulatory Duties
  • Cause-Effect
  • Consequences for Commercial Contracts and Force Majeure

 

Why is our Expert Group Unique?

COVID-19 has proven once again that our environment can change rapidly and in detrimental ways. We stay at the forefront of real-time crises and our experts have extensively studied pandemics or have first-hand experience dealing in industries devastated by downturns and disasters. Some of the Team are involved with the front-line war against the virus with research and development of Covid-19 solutions, others lecture on the subject and some have advised policymakers varying from regulators, Institutions, and Governments to global policymakers such as the World Health Organisation.

Our unique multi-disciplinary COVID-19 Expert Team includes academics and industry professionals with vast knowledge and experience in fields affected by the pandemic. Along with experts with unparalleled experience in the scientific, medical, technical, engineering, architectural, R&D, AI & Modelling, legal, regulatory, and crisis management fields, our teams include Experts from the industries that have suffered the greatest impact from the crisis. These industries include the logistics, food supply chain, hospitality, transport, oil & gas, financial services, insurance, pharmaceutical, and manufacturing industries.