Dairy products can easily be spilled; and when they land on a hard floor, they can become a dangerous slipping hazard. The old saying ‘don’t cry over spilt milk’ may not apply to the victim of an accident who has twisted their knee or broken their arm due to a dairy product spillage.
Whether it’s a spilt patch of milk in Morrison’s or some ice cream melted on a shopping centre floor, what are your rights if you slip on a dairy product spillage? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?
In public places, the law that generally applies is the Occupiers Liability Act and this places a duty on whoever is in control of a premises to ‘take all reasonable steps’ to prevent an accident occurring. Things can easily get spilled and accidents can easily happen – so when can a company be held liable in failing to take reasonable steps to prevent accidents?
In the vast majority of cases it comes down to proving how long the spillage has been there for. Most places ought to have a system of inspection where staff can spot hazards and clear them away as soon as possible. If they don’t have such inspection regimes, I’d say they are liable.
If they do have inspection systems but haven’t adhered to them, or if they are not reasonable enough, they can be liable. If an aisle in a supermarket is checked every hour and staff are trained to ‘clean as you go’ and this has been complied with, you may find it difficult to claim I’m afraid.
If a hazard is spotted and no wet floor sign or cordon is deployed in good time before it can be cleared away, this again can leave a company negligent. We have seen circumstances in the past were staff may have spotted a hazard and then disappeared to report it. That’s all very well, but it would be better if someone can guard the area until someone can deploy a sign or people will still be at risk.
Slipping doesn’t automatically guarantee you a claim – you must still prove negligence, and this can often be hard as many places do have robust inspection regimes. But in many cases you have a powerful weapon in your legal arsenal – CCTV footage; something that most places have nowadays.
Footage only lasts for a few weeks before it’s erased forever, so get in their quick and make a claim so we can take steps to safeguard it. You never know – the supermarket may, on paper, have a great system of inspection and maintenance – but the camera never lies! Footage may show the spillage has been there for longer than it perhaps should have been.
