As the cold snap in the UK marks the end of what was a summer of some seriously scorching weather, potholes will no doubt be on the rise in the coming weeks and months as water slips in to cracks in the surface, freezes, expands, and breaks open the ground. And with the rise in potholes comes the rise in tripping and falling accidents.
So what are your rights when it comes to making a claim for personal injury compensation if you trip in a pothole that was specifically on a car park?
Your Rights
It’s generally difficult to win a claim against the local authority for a pothole that is out on the street because the duty they have only extends to having a system of inspection and maintenance which can be on cycles of up to 12 months. This means that if your pothole pops up in-between inspection periods, they can easily defend the claim.
But when it comes to car parks the duty is higher.
Generally speaking, for a privately managed car park, the law that applies is the Occupiers Liability Act. This means that the owners of a car park must take all reasonable steps to look out for your wellbeing when using the car park.
A system of inspection and maintenance like that a council uses can be used to show that reasonable steps are being taken. But another thing to consider is the fact that car parks will probably be inspected by an attendant multiple times on a daily basis. Whilst they’re probably there to slap penalty fines on fee dodgers, you’d think they would notice if a pothole has sprung up somewhere in the car park.
If you take a free car park in a supermarket as another example, there are constantly trolley attendants going round collecting trolleys all over the car park. So employees of the persons responsible for the land will be continually in view of potential defects on the ground.
We can use this as an argument to show that the owners ought to have known of the existence of a pothole and have failed to act to make the area safe. Whilst potholes can appear suddenly in a short period of time, a car park that’s inspected daily should surely be free from hazards like a pothole.
Even for security reasons the car parks are probably inspected at least once every evening or morning as well.
100% Compensation
Unlike other lawyers, we still offer 100% compensation for car park pothole claims, so give us a call now on 0800 634 75 75 to receive every penny of the payout that is rightfully yours. Make sure you take some photos of the defect as well as this can help for evidence purposes.
