Trips, slips and falls – How to claim
We’ve all had that embarrassing moment when we trip or slip in public. Thankfully, most of the time, it’s just our pride that’s bruised, and the incident becomes a light-hearted story. But not everyone is so lucky. Some trips, slips and falls lead to serious, even life-changing injuries—and that’s when knowing how to claim becomes important.
Unfortunately, some people are very badly injured as a result of a slip, trip or fall, and I have dealt with several cases where people have suffered life-changing injuries.
The law is very complicated in this area, with different rules and regulations applying to different situations.
For example, you could fall on the public pavement and have no case whatsoever. However, your claim may be successful if you had an identical fall, with an identical defect, and identical injuries, but the accident happened on your employer’s premises. Slip, trip and fall cases fall into three categories. Firstly, accidents that occur on the pavements or roads are the Highway Authority’s responsibility. Secondly, accidents that occur on private property, such as supermarkets, leisure centres, public houses, etc. The third category occurs at work.
For this blog post, I am going to concentrate on accidents that occur on the streets and on private property. As I mentioned earlier, the law in relation to accidents at work can produce different results because there are different considerations and a raft of regulations your employer is expected to adhere to. I’ll deal with accidents at work in a later article.
Accidents that occur on public highways are difficult cases to win, and, in my experience, the councils will generally fight these types of cases. Here are a few facts:
- Not all the public pavements come under the jurisdiction of the Highway Authority, i.e. they’ve not been adopted. I have had cases where people have been walking down a pavement, half of it has been adopted, and the other half has not been adopted. If it’s not been adopted, then the claim is potentially against the landowner, and in some cases, the land is not owned by anybody. It is known as common land, and anybody injured on that land has no recourse for compensation.
- If the highway has been adopted, you would have to establish that the defect that caused your injury is an actionable defect. The Court back in the 1950s determined that it’s impossible for the Highway Authority to have pavements and roads that are like a bowling green, and it’s clearly impractical for the Authority to inspect all the roads and pavements every day. Therefore, as a rule of thumb, unless the defect on the pavement is 2.5cm or more, it’s unlikely that you will succeed. It is important to stress that this isn’t a rule, but a guideline and in certain cases, I’ve been successful where the defect has been below that measurement, as every case is looked at on its facts.
- Assume now that you’ve established that you have an actionable defect; that’s not the end of the matter. If the Council can establish that they have a reasonable inspection of the pavement/road and nobody has reported the defect in between inspections, they will probably go on to successfully defend the case. On some roads, such as residential roads, a reasonable system of inspection is performed yearly. The Council simply argue that the defect has emerged between the inspections and it’s up to you to prove otherwise, which can be very difficult.
- As a consequence, I’ve noticed that fewer solicitors are prepared to deal with these types of cases. PHH Solicitors still take these types of cases on a No Win, No Fee basis, provided there is an actionable defect. If the Council raise the reasonable system of inspection defence, we will analyse this carefully, look for witnesses that can testify as to the state of the roadway and how long it has been like that and see if we can see whether the defect appeared on earlier Google Earth pictures. If we feel, after our investigations, there is a reasonable case to pursue, we will take the matter to Court.
- Accidents that occur on private property can generally be divided into accidents caused by defects in the structure of the flooring and slips and trips caused by something spilt on the floor. In my experience, if you are dealing with a defect in relation to the structure of the flooring, or a defect in the car park of the premises, although the owners do have the defence of reasonable inspection open to them because those inspections can and should take place, probably in most cases on a daily basis, then it is usually easier to establish a fault on the private owner of land.
- The slips and trips are more problematic and again, the Courts have been sympathetic to the owner of public places and, providing that they can establish that they have something in place, where there is an inspection of the flooring on a regular basis, during the course of the day, if you slip on a product that has been spilt by a customer, for example, the supermarket’s insurers are likely to defend the case, on the basis of the reasonable system of inspections. This can be a very difficult argument to defeat.
- Sometimes, other arguments can be raised against the public place concerning the suitability of the flooring. The Health & Safety Executive can determine that flooring should have a certain slip resistance, even if something is spilt on it. If the slip resistance falls below the Health & Safety Executive’s figures for slip resistance, (even when something is spilt on the floor), you may have a claim against owner/occupiers of the premises. This argument has been successful for me in numerous out-of-court settlements against public places nationwide. In those cases, I usually instruct an engineer to carry out what is called a Pendulum Slip Test on the flooring concerned.
If you’ve had a trip, slip and fall on the roads or pavements, in public places, on private property, or at work, please contact me for a no-obligation chat. I can’t promise you we will take on the case, but if we do, it will be on a no-win, no-fee basis.
Please get in touch with Peter Jensen, PHH Solicitors, Fleetwood, 01253 778231 or Contact Us