Tripping accidents are relatively common – there are tonnes of hazards out there just waiting to, well literally, trip us up. If you have tripped over and want to know if you are due compensation for the injuries you have ended up with, you will need to contact a specialist personal injury lawyer to assess the case and perhaps take it on.
But in the meantime, here is a little advice about making a tripping accident claim and some facts you need to know about:
Who Is At Fault?
Firstly, there has to be someone else responsible for you to make a claim. Basically, if you trip over your own feet for no reason other than by pure bad luck, you probably don’t have a claim.
But the main point I’m getting at here is that we often find with tripping claims there can be so much debate and investigation in to who is actually responsible for compensating you. If you trip over a raised paving slab in the street, you would naturally assume the council is at fault. But they think to remember is they may not be – the land could be owned by a shop if its on the street and may class as part of their premises, or it may be a private organisation who is responsible on behalf of the council to maintain the area. It may be a utilities company if the area is surrounding a man hole or a grate of some kind.
Even when you think you know that it’s a council, you may end up thinking it’s the wrong one – it’s not uncommon for one council to turn around and state that the area is actually under the jurisdiction of their neighbours, or is the responsibility of a higher county council as oppose to local council, or vice versa. It really can be a tricky old game! Unfortunately, it is not always easy right from the start to know exactly who is at fault – so sometimes it can take letter of claim after letter of claim from one body to the next in a long line of redirections to get to the bottom of it. Sadly, this takes time as each one will need to investigate the claim and confirm their decision. There’s not a great deal we can do, sadly.
So, you must be patient when it comes to these sorts of claims. I always say to people that it is best to play “Devil’s Advocate” and expect that it will get redirected, and expect organisations to dispute responsibility. Ultimately, they don’t want to have to pay a claim out for you, so they will find any excuse to either pass the buck or dispute liability. Even in a supermarket the store may employ another company to maintain and inspect the areas of the store.
Are They At Fault?
Even when we know who is at fault, it can be difficult to determine exactly whether you have a good case or not. The majority of tripping accidents come down to whether the company responsible has done all that is reasonable and practical within their power and within the context of the law to prevent accidents from occurring. Basically, they have to regularly inspect and maintain their premises, or areas of jurisdiction to ensure that no tripping hazards become apparent.
If an organisation can prove that they regularly inspected and maintained areas in their jurisdiction as per their requirement to do so by law, they can successfully defend a claim; irrelevant of the seriousness of your injuries.
Making a Claim
The best thing to do is contact a personal injury lawyer as soon as you possibly can. It’s a good idea to take photos of the defect or hazard you tripped over as soon as you can, and make sure you get some medical attention for your injuries.
For more information, call our free claims helpline on 0800 634 75 75 today.
