Price tags on the floor can be a dangerous hazard. Their small size does not mean they will not cause a slip – in fact, they can be very slippery and very hard to spot due to their small size.
So if you slip in a shop or other premises on a price tag or a pile of tags on the floor and you end up injured as a result, can you make a claim for a slipping injury for compensation?
The Law
As a visitor to a shop or other premises, The Occupiers Liability Act puts a duty on whoever is in control of the premises to take all reasonable steps to prevent accidents. There are many ways that price tags can end up on the ground – they could be dropped or fall from items, or they could have been left there by an employee.
How the price tags ended up there can depend on whether you can win a claim or not. If they were left there by staff, you have a very good chance at winning the claim. The reason for this is that the negligence of an employee of a business leaves the business liable. Leaving tags on the floor where they pose an obvious slipping hazard is dangerous.
If they have fallen on the floor generally, then whether a claim can win can come down to what reasonable steps they have taken to prevent such accidents. Systems of cleaning and inspection can identify such hazards and clear them away. If they don’t operate such things, you may have a winning claim for compensation.
What if I was at work when it happened?
The law that covers employees is The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations and it puts a similar duty on a business as your employer as it does for members of the public. The difference is that you are making an employers liability claim instead, and you will normally claim from employers liability insurance instead.
What to do
For cases like this it is always worth speaking to us as we can normally assist with a claim on a no win, no fee basis. Whether you can win or not is hard to say right from the start, but it isn’t too difficult to get a claim forms set up and submitted.
