Paper, leaflets, or cardboard can pose serious slipping hazards to anyone unfortunate enough to step on such a thing. Whether such materials have fallen on the floor and been left there through poor housekeeping, or whether there are storage issues, there may be a claim to answer for if you have slipped in these circumstances either at work or in a public place.
Supermarkets, shops, offices, warehouses; there is normally a duty as both a member of the public and an employee of a business.
The regulations that govern the condition of floors and traffic routes are fairly similar in principle for both workplaces and public places. At work we have The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations, where a specific section states:
So far as is reasonably practicable, every floor in a workplace and the surface of every traffic route in a workplace shall be kept free from obstructions and from any article or substance which may cause a person to slip, trip or fall.
As a visitor to somewhere like a shop or a supermarket, there is the Occupiers Liability Act where those in control of premises have a duty to take all reasonable steps to ensure no one is the victim of a slip, trip, or fall. A relevant section states as follows:
…the duty is to take such care as is reasonable in all the circumstances of the case to see that he does not suffer injury on the premises by reason of the danger concerned.
You may have spotted that the term ‘reasonable‘ is common in both of the legislation here, and it’s a fairly common term used throughout a great deal of health and safety law. What it means is that a person is not automatically entitled to compensation by the mere fact that they have slipped. There is a duty on you as the victim to show that whoever you are pursuing for compensation has failed to take ‘reasonable‘ steps that could have prevented the accident.
And that’s where we come in!
We can pursue a claim for you and find out what kind of documentation and evidence the opponent has so that we can assess whether they have acted ‘reasonably‘ or not. If they have taken ‘reasonable‘ steps to prevent such incidents occurring then they can, and probably will, defend the claim.
You can normally only claim where we can prove that there has been a breach of the duty of care owed to you.
So let’s take a look at some scenarios where an occupier or an employer may be in breach of the law and therefore may owe you compensation for an injury:
- Where paper and / or similar articles are allowed to be stored dangerously on the ground
- Where such articles may end up on the ground through a lack of policy or procedure to prevent it
- Through a lack of cleaning and inspection procedures to look out for and clear away such hazards
The above are three of the more common scenarios. We could also look at vicarious liability, which basically means that the employer of an employee is responsible for their negligent actions. For example, if an employee was negligent and caused paper or similar articles to be on the ground and that is how you were injured, you may have a winning claim.
