A whisky factory worker sued her bosses after her hearing was badly damaged by noise in the bottling hall where she worked for 28 years.
Margaret Denny has been awarded £45,000 in compensation after winning her legal battle against whisky giant Chivas Brothers.
All Scotland Sheriff Personal Injury Court was told 63-year-old suffered permanent hearing loss while working at a plant in Dumbarton.
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Her lawyers told Sheriff Kenneth Campbell KC her employers - Chivas Brothers and its predecessors Allied Distillers - didn’t do enough to mitigate noise levels at the plant.
Ms Denny started working at the plant in 1990 and continued working in a bottling hall until 2018. She is now an office worker there.
She wasn’t given any hearing protection until 1996 and the court heard how the original ear-plugs were “itchy” and that Ms Denny had to extract them from time to time to scratch her ear.
The ear-plugs also occasionally popped out of Ms Denny’s ears whilst she was working and her hearing wasn’t protected when these things happened.
Risk assessments carried out at the facility in the town’s Kilmalid area in the 2000s found that noise levels in the hall were in excess of 85 decibels.
The figure is 15 times more intense than the 70-decibel level considered safe by the World Health Organisation.
The court also heard how the firm took “no engineering measures” to reduce the noise levels at the facility.
The court also heard how the pursuer has worn hearing aids provided by the NHS since 2019.
Before that, she had the TV at high volume in order to hear, and did not use the radio because she was not comfortable with loud music.
Her legal team told the court that she has tinnitus and no longer enjoys socialising because she can’t keep track of conversations when more than one person is involved. The condition - which she described as a buzzing sound - also affects her ability to get to sleep at night.
In a written judgement published by the court on Wednesday, Sheriff Campbell awarded Ms Denny a total of £45,494.13.
He wrote: “The pursuer has developed noise-induced hearing loss and tinnitus as a result of the defender’s fault and negligence.
“The pursuer has suffered a loss as a result of the defender’s fault and negligence.
“The pursuer is entitled to damages for her losses caused by the defender’s fault and negligence in the sum of £45,494.13.”
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