A raised section of tiling is a fairly obvious tripping hazard. However, its not always noticeable to the innocent victim who unfortunately ends up injured by tripping over it. So, what are your rights when it comes to being injured due to tripping over a raised tile in a shop? Can you claim for compensation for a slip, trip or fall incident like this?
The Law
The law that applies in these kinds of scenarios is usually The Occupiers Liability Act if you are a member of the public visiting the shop. This law is very important, and it puts a duty on whoever is in control of a premises to take all reasonable steps to prevent an injury occurring.
So, all reasonable steps would include making sure that there are no defects on the ground like raised tiles.
So when can you claim?
You can make a claim if we can prove that the shop owners has failed to take all reasonable steps. Such as:
- They were aware of the raised tile and did nothing about it
- They were aware of the danger and performed a poor job of rectifying that ultimately failed
- The tiles were recently laid and were not laid correctly
The duty to prove that you have a claim is always on you as the accident victim. So we must show that the shop has failed in their duty of care for you, and the above are examples of this. A poor rectification job could be using tape to stick tiles down temporarily. Normally such a temporary thing is bound to come up eventually.
When it comes to knowledge, it can depend on how long the defect has been there for. If staff have walked past it through the day and not noticed it, or if the shop has no system of inspection and maintenance, that can show negligence. Most places should have inspection regimes to look out for spillages and other incidental hazards; during these, a raised tile should and could be spotted.
CCTV can be one great way of proving this. If you were able to take photos, that can help your case.
So what should you do?
Just call us 0800 634 7575 and we should be able to investigate a claim for you on a no win, no fee basis. If we can, we’ll look to get a claim submitted and try and get an admission of liability from the shop.
Nowadays it’s a real easy process to get a claim started – we can take your instructions in one call and get the claim moving forward right away.
