We are very happy that we have managed to secure a fantastic payout for our client Miss S who was awarded £14,500 in compensation when she was the victim of a collapsing chair in a restaurant. All four of the chair legs came apart resulting in a horrific fall where our client sustained several unfortunate injuries as a result.
We had to really battle the other side on this one as well.
In these kinds of circumstances it comes down to The Occupiers Liability Act and what reasonable steps the restaurant had taken to prevent an accident occurring. Simple systems of inspection and maintenance and keeping records is the easiest way to achieve this.
Initially, as we expect in these kinds of cases, their insurers denied liability because they say a visual inspection is carried out on a daily basis and that a physical inspection is placing too much of a burden on them. They also suggested that the claim should be redirected to the seller of the chair as it was notably purchased from them within weeks of the actual accident.
In the situations we must make reasonable enquiries with other potential Defendants, and this was carried out. That being said, the chair sold was an old antique chair and it doesn’t absolve the restaurant of liability just because it was recently purchased. It may have been new to them in the sense it was a recent purchase but it was still a very aged piece of furniture.
As a firm of specialist personal injury lawyers we used the vastly experienced solicitors and barristers we had to form a plan of action for fighting the insurers of the restaurant. Our main argument was that there should actually be a greater burden to ensure that a new piece of furniture, especially one that is knowingly aged and classed as an antique, should have been subject to better checks upon purchase and thereafter. The fact that it was a recent purchase for the restaurant was, if anything, more in our favour. They knew it was old – why didn’t they make sure it was safe? One cannot simply assume it is safe just because it has been sold to you. It was still an antique chair after all.
Now, given that this case settled for £14,500, you might have already guessed that the injuries sustained were fairly serious. We needed to get a lot of comprehensive medical evidence in this case, and the primary injury areas that were most serious were to the knee and the back. Scans and treatment was required as part of the ongoing claim.
Given that the insurers had denied liability we issued court proceedings and formally served them on to the opponent when we were ready to do so. The next stage would be directions as to how the case should proceed and eventually go to a trial if the insurers were to maintain their stance in trying to defend the claim.
When the case was passed from the insurers to the solicitors, which is normal when court proceedings are formally issued and served, a ‘Defence’ was provided to us which is a formal response to our allegations of fault that we send as part of the documents and evidence. They maintained their position and even suggested that our client should have taken more care to ‘appreciate’ the condition of the chair and to seek an alternative chair if necessary. As I’m sure you can agree though, that kind of suggestion is crazy – if they say a system of visual inspection was good enough for them, how can our client have been able to visually inspect the chair in any more depth?
Nevertheless we were successful in persuading them to make an offer for settlement which was agreed by Miss S. Their solicitors probably appreciated the risk that their defence of the claim was not enough to stop us from fighting them and winning at court. Despite the fact they disputed liability all the way through, they knew that we had a solid chance of winning the case.
The only shame really is that they fought it for the length of time that they did. Had they have negotiated a settlement at a much earlier date we could have got this case wrapped up much faster and it would have kept our legal fees down. It’s in the insurer’s interests to keep their costs down, but when they fight us all the way, it ends up costing them more money if we eventually win.
If you need expert legal representation for a personal injury accident claim call our team 0800 634 7575.
