Concrete can break, raise, and crumble under the stresses of bad weather and pressure from vehicles constantly driving over surfaces. If you drive, you’ve probably seen potholes littered everywhere on our highways, and it’s a mission in itself to dodge them and avoid damaging your car.
But what happens if you’re in a car park and you trip due to a pothole or other defect on the surface? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation from the council or whoever is in control of the car park?
It’s all about inspection and maintenance
Winning a claim like this, as with general pothole trip claims against the council, is generally down to whether the person or company responsible has a system of inspection and maintenance to look out for hazards, and whether they have upheld their system, and whether it is reasonable.
So, generally speaking, we would expect that whoever is responsible for the car park would have a system whereby they would review the surface for dangerous defects and act upon any as necessary. But there are other things to consider that may be relevant in the case of a car park.
If it’s a car park where you pay for a spot, you would expect an attendant to be around at least once a day to make sure there are no freeloaders dodging the parking ticket price and parking for free. So if there is a daily attendant, have they been trained to spot and report such hazards? Have they been instructed to cordon off such areas to prevent an accident? If they haven’t, even if there is a dedicated inspection system, we could argue that the hazard could have been prevented as it was known to an employee of those responsible.
What about CCTV footage? Most places won’t keep it for too long but we could see if an attendant has spotted hazard and done nothing about it – that might help.
It can be difficult to win a claim if whoever is responsible for the area can prove they have a system of inspection and can prove that it is reasonable and has been upheld – say every one month, or three months perhaps. But as I say, there are other things to consider: like whether the car park is attended. Aside from systems of inspection, it’s also down to what knowledge whoever is responsible for the area has, or ought to have had, about the hazard.
In any event, it’s definitely worth getting in touch as we should be able to investigate a claim for you on a No Win, No Fee basis.
100% Compensation for Car Park Tripping Claims
For claims like this we offer 100% compensation agreements – which is not something most lawyers will do nowadays. So get in touch on 0800 634 75 75 and we’ll see if we can assist you.
