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A bit of a niche area of law here – what are you rights if you have an accident in a restaurant, or perhaps a bar or a cafe, because of a chair? Well, let’s look at the law and whether you may be entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation.

Generally speaking, unless you work at the restaurant, the law that applies is the Occupiers Liability Act, and this vital piece of legislation dictates that the occupier of a premises, i.e. those in charge or responsible at the restaurant, have a duty to take all reasonable steps to prevent an injury occurring.

When it comes to chairs, what are classed as reasonable steps? Well a system of inspection would be a good start – checking to make sure that the structure of the chairs is stable and ensure there are no breaks or defects to make sure that the chair is not liable to break or collapse. A record of this should be kept as well.
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At work, your employer is under a pretty heavy duty to look after your health and safety, and make sure you are not injured whilst working. When I say heavy, I mean there are a lot of workplace rules and regulations that employers must abide by, and breaching any of these regulations can pave the way to you making a work injury claim for personal compensation.
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Highways agencies and local authorities have a duty to maintain highways. Slips, trips and falls on defective highways, streets, roads and pathways are very common.

Common defects can include potholes, cracked or broken paving slabs, missing manhole covers, uneven ground and no barriers or rails found on public walkways and stairs.

The Highways Act 1980 is the act for governing and maintaining the highways. Under S41 of the 1980 Act, the local authority have a duty to maintain the highways, and that duty ‘is to ensure as reasonably practicable’ that the public will have a safe passage along the highway.
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Damages are compensation to be paid to a claimant for a personal injury, which they have suffered, resulting in some form of loss. The aim of damages is to try and put the person back into the position they were in before the accident occurred.

There are two types of damages which can be awarded – general damages and special damages. General damages are commonly defined as damages which are awarded for pain, suffering and loss of amenity. Special damages are damages related to expenses and losses on your part.

Special damages are not simply awarded, they need to be evidenced and claimed for and the court may assess the figure to be awarded. All aspects of the injuries impact on the claimant’s daily life are to be considered.
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Working at height poses a great risk to safety, accounting for a quarter of all workplace deaths. Falling from a height is the one most common causes of an accident within the workplace causing minor/major injuries and fatalities. Of course most of the time the fall isn’t from a great height, with 70 per cent of all accidents being caused from falling from below head height.

Injuries likely to be caused by falling from a height are as follows:

• Twist or swelling to the knees
• Sprained or broken limbs
• Back pain or slipped discs
• Soft tissues damage to the body area

The Working at Height Regulations 2005 were introduced to try and prevent accidents caused by a fall from height, and the regulations are to apply to anywhere where there is a risk of falling. The 2005 regulations set out that a height is to be defined as ‘any place, including a place at or below ground level‘, which liable to cause a personal injury.
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Personally, I can’t tolerate people who drink and drive. There is a very good reason why drinking and driving is illegal – intoxicating substances impair our judgement, and being behind the wheel whilst drunk is like a child running round with a knife. We see it all too often in the news when a person is badly hurt or killed because a driver loses control of their vehicle and causes an incident.

So what happens if you are the unfortunate victim of a drunk driver who has not only caused you a loss by mixing alcohol with driving, but also happens to have no insurance? It’s a lot more common than you might think. This dangerous combination though does not stop you making a claim for personal injury compensation.
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As always, it really depends on the type of accident you’ve had. But I will try and help out with some general guidance as to what happens next once the Defendant has accepted liability for your personal injury compensation claim.

Accepting liability is essentially the Defendant agreeing that they owe you compensation for what has happened. They accept there’s been a breach of duty on their part.

When making a claim for compensation there are two hurdles to cross that make for a winning claim – liability and causation. So liability is that first part – proving someone is at fault – causation means proving that the fault has caused a loss to you.
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Cutting ourselves is easy to do. You graze past anything with a bit of an edge and our skin is vulnerable to being cut. But can you make a claim for personal injury compensation if you are cut by a sharp object? Can you even claim for just a cut or scarring? Here’s some advice.

Firstly, you can make a personal injury compensation claim for a cut – or laceration as we call it (the posh term!). You do not have to have broken anything to make a claim. Superficial scarring is a claimable injury, and it’s normally based on the severity and longevity of the scarring. You may not be in pain, but the fact you have a scar on you is claimable. If you have a facial scar, this is obviously taken in to account way more.

Lacerations can of course be much more serious if they are deeper and hit a tendon or nerve.  The damage that can be done if a tendon is torn or severed is significant, and can affect mobility in the affected area. Inuring tendons in the hand and arm could lead to a permanent loss of mobility in the hand or fingers, and this will of course be taken in to account for a claim.
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The Montreal Convention covers accidents that occur during the course of international travel by air. If you have been involved in such an accident, sustaining injury, then you may be entitled to make a compensation claim. Many of us travel by aeroplane these days and when things do go wrong and an accident occurs, a person should still have a right of action. Under the Montreal Convention a person may have a right of action if they have sustained an injury through an accident that was not their fault. Holiday excursions such as travelling by hot air balloon may also come under this convention, so travel by air is not solely specific to travel by aeroplane.

In terms of dealing with such a claim, it will be useful to consider any contractual terms and conditions which should have been issued to you at the time of booking the flight/holiday or excursion. Bookings are often made through a tour operator. Most personal injury claims run to a 3 year time limit within England / Wales jurisdiction. This means that court proceedings must be issued within 3 years of the date of the accident; otherwise you will lose your right to claim compensation. However under the Montreal Convention the time limit for bringing a claim is commonly 2 years from the date of the accident. It is said that the benefit of the convention is that it is not necessary to establish fault for the accident in order to succeed with the claim. This is known as strict liability. It is merely necessary to show that a plane accident occurred and that the passenger was injured as a result.
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One bit of loose carpet can be a serious issue if someone trips on it or slips because it isn’t gripping the floor. Tripping or slipping can be bad enough if you fall down to the floor fast and hard, but what about carpets on stairs? You take a fall down a flight of stairs and you can end up with serious injuries.

So is there a law or a duty when it comes to loose carpets? It depends on where it happens, but given its likely it will be in a place of work or in a public place, here is the info you need to know:

Loose Carpet at Work

Regulation 12 (2) (a) states:

The floor, or surface of the traffic route, shall have no hole or slope, or be uneven or slippery so as, in each case, to expose any person to a risk to his health or safety.
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