Settlement negotiated with employer for young tree surgeon trapped under falling tree

Case studies

Settlement negotiated with employer for young tree surgeon trapped under falling tree


We successfully brought a claim for a young woman in her twenties who was training to be a tree surgeon when she sustained a serious spinal cord injury from being trapped under a falling tree.

She instructed us to make a claim against her former boyfriend and employer. When working on a site with the defendant, she was left to fell a tree by herself and, due to her inexperience, made technical errors which resulted in the tree falling and trapping her underneath. The accident caused a permanent spinal cord injury with loss of the use of her legs.

Her claim was brought on the basis that she had insufficient experience to be felling this tree on her own with only distant supervision and that the defendant should have been assisting her. The claim was disputed but ultimately settled after negotiation.


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Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP is a limited liability partnership registered in England and Wales with registered number OC311575 and is authorised and regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority under number 419867.

Penningtons Manches Cooper LLP