Warehouse Safety Pallets

Warehouse Safety Pallets can cause serious injury.

In this case, a falling pallet injures a worker. A long standing employee of a paper warehouse sustained multiple breaks to her leg when poorly stacked pallets of paper collapsed and struck her leg. She still suffers from pain and complications more than five years after the incident. The courts heard that the employee had helped to recover two pallets of paper that had collapsed and spilled from a larger stack. As she was walking away more pallets collapsed and hit her leg causing the injuries. The hearing was told that there were two prior recorded incidents of this happening without injury and on a further three occasions it had been brought to the attention of management. They in turn had failed to act on this information and make practical changes to improve safety or to implement effective control measures in the stacking of heavy items.

The investigation showed that although risks had been identified of falling stacks as a concern, no risk assessment of this particular activity of stacking had been identified. It was also found that stacking pallets in open spaces in this manner did not follow HSE or industry guidance and ACOP’s. The company was fined £30,000 and made to pay £4,496 in costs.

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