WRULD DB-Claimant: Debra Sanders

Case	Task	Injury	Date	Court	Judgment for
Sanders - v - University of Hull	DSE use: typesetting	Tenosynovitis, De Quervain's Syndrome	8 Nov 1999	Kingston upon Hull County	Defendant

The Claimant worked for the Defendant as a typesetter from the beginning of 1990 until mid 1995, when she began an absence of about a year. Her job was to produce the University stationery with letter headings, make compliment slips and posters and publish the University calendar etc. The manual tasks in this work were varied. They included operating a keyboard, inserting and removing the cartridges in the printer and processor, replenishing the chemicals used in the processor, refining art work, delivering the products to the post room and, during slack periods, assembling loose sheets of print to form booklets. She worked from 8 am until 4.30 pm with a one hour lunch break and she was able to take toilet breaks when necessary. She did not work overtime. During slack periods in the print and design unit, she accepted casual work typing students' dissertations, which was done during normal office hours.

In June 1995, the Claimant complained of right wrist pain from which she said that she had been intermittently suffering since 1994. The Claimant was referred to her GP who made a diagnosis of RSI or perhaps De Quervains Syndrome. There then followed over the next eighteen months substantial and prolonged absences from work.

The medical expert called by the Claimant was of the opinion that, on the balance of probability, the Claimant was suffering from a pathological condition of her right hand namely De Quervains Tenosynovitis and Tenosynovitis which had arisen as a consequence of her employment, but conceded, that diagnosis in these sort of cases is "tricky". The medical expert called on behalf of the Defendant noted that there had been a number of difficulties with the Claimant's neck and that she had been seen on a number of occasions complaining of pain in her neck, elbow and wrist. While agreeing that the diagnosis was tricky, he was of the view that her condition was not work-related. HH Judge Cracknell found that the Claimant had not proved that the condition from which she suffered in 1995 was a work-related disorder and that whatever the condition was in 1995, it was not due to any negligence or breach of statutory duty on the part of the University.

HH Judge Cracknell found that the Defendant's staff who gave evidence were "profoundly conscientious to a degree that I have not ever previously encountered before in many years of trying this sort of case" and acutely aware of the Health and Safety (Display Screen Equipment) Regulations and aware of the risk that the law was designed to minimise and avoid.

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Last updated: 16/10/2009