A plumber has won up to £200,000 in compensation after the furious son of a householder beat him up in a row over a broken radiator.
Thomas Browne, 32, had his hand crushed by being slammed in a door and was punched twice in the face by the son, who had ‘grown frustrated and angry’ over a long-term issue with the central heating at his mother’s property in Hammersmith.
The attack left Mr Browne so traumatised that he was left ‘shaking’ and ended up being ‘violently sick’ when he returned home, Central London County Court heard.
Mr Browne told the court how he tried to calm the tenant’s furious son down, but after ringing a colleague, he was told to ‘get out of there’.
However, the son stood in front of the door and refused to let him leave until the issue was resolved.
The plumber was then verbally abused, punched twice in the head and his right dominant hand was crushed by a door being forcefully closed on it.
He went on to claim £200,000 compensation for his ordeal, suing his employers, K&T Heating Services, to whom the council had outsourced its engineering maintenance contracts.
After a four-day trial Judge Lawrence Cohen KC ruled in favour of Mr Browne, holding his employers at fault in not flagging previous concerns about the angry resident.
Thomas Browne, 32, (pictured) had his hand crushed by being slammed in a door and was punched twice in the face by the son, who had ‘grown frustrated and angry’ over a long-term issue with the central heating at his mother’s council property in Hammersmith
The court heard that Mr Browne was left shaken by the ‘aggressive’ son after telling him he was unable to change a defective radiator, but could only attempt to repair it.
The judge heard Mr Browne had gone to home to carry out a ‘radiator survey’ in March 2020, the seventh engineers’ appointment at the property in only four months.
‘Issues with radiators at the premises were not a new problem,’ said his barrister Helen Nugent.
‘Mr Browne was attacked by the tenant’s son, who had apparently grown frustrated and angry about the lack of progress that had been made to fix it.’
‘There was a history of aggression and violence at the property,’ she added.
She claimed that the plumber’s colleagues had previously reported being the subject of ‘aggressive language’ and ‘threats’ over the quality of work, and that Mr Browne ought to have been better protected and not sent there alone.
A risk of harm was ‘reasonably foreseeable’ in a situation where Mr Browne was a ‘lone front-line worker engaging directly with members of the public in their homes,’ she said.
The judge criticised K&T Heating’s ‘sloppy’ system for logging such troubling episodes and said he had no doubt that the past incidents were reported as claimed by Mr Browne’s colleagues.
He concluded: ‘I have made findings about the thoroughly unsatisfactory and sloppy system of K&T Heating when reporting and documenting incidents.
‘When I add to that the impressive impression I have formed of Mr Browne and his witnesses and the rather less impressive impression I have formed of (the line manager) together with the powerful evidence about failures in the system of work, I have no hesitation in accepting that the line manager was told as alleged by these witnesses, and the failure of K&T Heating was systemic.
‘In these circumstances I will find in favour of Mr Browne on liability.’
In his evidence, Mr Browne described how he tried to placate the council tenant’s furious son, but then tried to back away from the situation when he called a colleague for advice about the situation and was urged to ‘get out of there’.
‘Mr Browne said he did just that,’ explained the judge.
‘He went and gathered his work and was going towards the door but the resident stood in front of the door and didn’t want him to leave until he had done the job.
‘The resident punched Mr Browne twice in the head and when he tried to open the door he shut his hand in the door causing injury, fortunately Mr Browne was then able to open the door again and was able to get out.’
The judge’s liability ruling has been made against both K&T Heating Services and Morgan Sindall Property Services Ltd, to whom Mr Browne transferred in June 2020.
With the plumber having won his case on liability, the amount of compensation he is due will be decided at a future court hearing, unless agreed, with his claim put at up to £200,000.
Mr Browne had claimed negligence by both Hammersmith and Fulham Council and his employers.
But the judge cleared the local authority of liability for his injuries, deciding that any failures by council officers to log past violent incidents had nothing to do with the March 2020 assault.
