It only take one little bit of cabbage or carrot to cause a slipping accident. Especially when mashed and trodden on, vegetables like this can make for a slippery bit of ground. So if you are the victim of a vegetable slipping accident, what can you do?
The Law
The law that generally applies for supermarkets, shops, or other public places you visit is the Occupiers Liability Act. This places a duty on the owners of the premises to take all reasonable steps to prevent an accident from causing an injury.
So what are classed as reasonable steps when it comes to preventing a bit of vegetable causing an accident?
There can be steps taken at the site or aisle where vegetables are stored, and you may have noticed that many supermarkets already have them. Mats around those sorts of aisles and areas is one good way of preventing a slipping hazard. You can expect bits of vegetable will end up dropped and discarded on the floor, so deploying mats over the usual hard slippery floors is a good way of preventing someone being injured.
In addition to that, supermarkets and shops should have systems of inspection and maintenance to check aisles and areas for spillages. Staff need to be trained to spot such hazards, and if anything is reported, it should be sorted out right away.
The above are the classic examples of reasonable steps that can be taken. Sadly for you, if the place you are claiming against can prove that they take such reasonable steps, they can very easily defend the claim. Perhaps the offending bit of carrot has fallen in between inspection periods.
So is it worth claiming?
Most definitely – we work on a No Win, No Fee basis anyway, so you don’t need to worry about the process costing you if the claim doesn’t win. It’s also fairly easy to get a claim submitted nowadays as well.
At the same time, the investigation period they have is only a period of 40 working days in most cases. This doesn’t give them a lot of time to investigate the case. If they cannot complete their investigations in time, or if it’s just a small injury you’re claiming for, the may just agree to pay out. It can cost them a lot of money if they dispute the case and we later fight them and win the claim.
There are other things to take in to account as well. One thing I always say is to get a claim made as soon as possible as there may be vital CCTV footage that shows your accident, and perhaps how the vegetable got there and how long it’s been there for. You never know – they may have missed something with their inspections of the footage could show a member of staff ignoring the hazard.
There are ways and means of fighting the case – so it’s always worth getting an expert law firm like us to represent you and make a go of it!