David Healey | Senior Solicitor | April 2026

A plumber was sent to a residential property in Hammersmith to carry out a routine central heating survey. Nobody told him about the history of the address. He knocked, introduced himself, and got to work.

The tenant’s son blocked the exit. He refused to let the plumber leave until the long-standing heating fault was fixed. He verbally abused him, punched him twice in the face, and slammed the door shut on his dominant hand. The plumber left in a state of shock. He was physically sick when he got back. He did not return to work that day.

The claim that followed did not end with action against the man who carried out the assault. It ended with a ruling that the company that employed the plumber was liable — because that company had sent him there alone, had records of aggression at that property, and had done nothing about them. The attack happened in March 2020. The liability judgment came in April 2026, after a four-day trial, and has direct implications for workers in England and Wales who face aggression in the course of their job.

He Was Sent to a Property His Employer Knew Was Dangerous — Can He Really Claim?

The claimant, a 32-year-old plumber, worked for a London heating maintenance contractor that had been outsourced the council’s maintenance contracts. In March 2020 he attended the Hammersmith address to survey the heating system — the seventh engineers’ appointment at that property in just four months. Issues with the radiators were not a new problem.

The tenant’s son had grown frustrated. After the plumber called a colleague during the visit and was told to leave, the son physically blocked the door. He punched the plumber twice in the face, then slammed the door on his right dominant hand, crushing it. The claimant was left with nerve damage in his hand. The liability ruling came six years later, at Central London County Court in April 2026.

The barrister for the claimant, Helen Nugent, told the court there was a history of aggression and violence at the property. Colleagues who had previously attended had reported being subjected to aggressive language and threats over the quality of work. Those reports had not been properly recorded by the employer. Judge Lawrence Cohen KC found that the past incidents were reported as claimed — but the employer’s system for logging them was, in the judge’s own word, sloppy. The case was reported by national media in April 2026. Full details are available at MSN News.

The judge found in favour of the claimant on liability. The ruling covers both the original contracting employer and a second company to which the claimant had transferred in June 2020. Compensation, claimed at up to £200,000, will be assessed at a future hearing. The council itself was cleared — any failure on their part to log incidents was found not to have caused the assault.

But a Member of the Public Did This — Why Is That My Employer’s Problem?

This is the question most workers ask. The person who attacked was not an employee. The employer did not swing the door. So how does the law connect the employer to the harm?

The answer is the concept of foreseeable risk. Where an employer is in a position to know that a risk exists — including a risk of violence from a third party — and fails to take reasonable steps to protect their worker, the law holds the employer responsible for the consequences. Three pieces of legislation frame this duty:

The barrister for the claimant described him as a “lone front-line worker engaging directly with members of the public in their homes.” The court accepted that a risk of harm was “reasonably foreseeable” in that context. The employer’s failure was not that an attack occurred. It was that an attack was predictable, and the employer had done nothing to reduce the risk of it happening.

The Judge Said the Employer’s Records Were ‘Sloppy’. What Does That Cost Them?

The pivotal finding in this judgment was not just that the employer failed to protect their worker. It was that the employer failed to keep adequate records of the warning signs that existed before the attack.

The employer’s position was that previous reports of aggression at the property had not been formally documented. The judge found that the past incidents had been reported by colleagues, as the claimant’s side contended — but the system for recording them was inadequate. The employer could not produce credible logs. That failure of record-keeping, not just the failure of protection, was decisive.

If an employer’s incident records are patchy, informal, or missing, they cannot later argue they had no warning of a risk at a particular address. The court looks at what the employer knew or ought to have known. A broken incident log is not a defence. It is evidence that the entire risk management system was broken.

I Was Attacked at a Customer’s Property — Does Any of This Apply to Me?

It may. A claim against an employer for a third-party attack does not require proof that the employer intended harm. It requires evidence that the risk was foreseeable and that the employer failed to take adequate steps to manage it. These are the questions a solicitor considers when reviewing a workplace attack claim:

Not every workplace attack gives rise to an employer liability claim. Where an attack was entirely unforeseeable and the employer had taken all reasonable precautions, liability is harder to establish. But where known warnings were ignored, where risk assessments were absent or generic, or where a lone-working policy did not exist, the employer’s exposure is substantial.

Which Type of Workplace Accident Applies to Your Situation?

Workplace accident claims cover a range of circumstances. Select the type that matches what happened to you.