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It may sound amusing, but it’s no laughing matter if you end up slipping on a vegetable (or vegetables) and fall down to the ground. Landing on a hard floor can easily result in broken bones. Twisting and turning as you fall can easily cause serious ligament damage.

So if this does happen to you, can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?
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If you have been injured due to a slipping accident at work, you may be entitled to claim compensation. At face value, slipping on ice is rather different to slipping on a spillage at work, whether the spillage is water, tea, coffee or something else. Whilst at work and on works premises, your employer has a duty to keep you reasonably safe and free from harm. This means that if a spillage does occur it should be cleaned up as soon as practicable. Until the spillage is cleaned employees should be protected in other ways – i.e. there should be a warning sign in place to warn of the hazard (wet floor).
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If a floor is being mopped, those employees mopping the floor have a duty to warn people that the floor is wet and poses a potential slipping hazard. Traditionally this is done by erecting Wet Floor signs. So what happens when a floor is being mopped and no warning sign is visible and someone slips and injures themself on the wet floor?

As a member of the public visiting a place like a supermarket or a bar, the Occupiers Liability Act puts a duty on the owners to take all reasonable steps to look out for your health and safety. Erecting a sign can be seen as a reasonable step; but failure to do so can be seen as a breach of the Occupiers Liability Act and that means they are liable to compensate you for a claim!
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Unfortunately in law there is rarely a yes or no answer to this kind of question, as there are always factors to consider. If you slip in a supermarket then you may well have a genuine claim for compensation. To have a claim we would consider the following:

First, have you suffered injury? After all this would be compensation for personal injury. To point out the obvious, if you slipped but did not sustain any injury then we would not be unable to assist you.

For us to help, you must have been injured in the accident to claim. The injury does not have to be a serious injury; a strain or other general soft tissue injury can be enough to bring a claim. To assess any potential injury, first go and see your own doctor.
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Whilst they may only protrude just a few centimetres or less, tripping on a protruding screw, nut, or bolt can easily end up in an injury. So what happens if you are the victim of such an incident? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?

To help you, I will split this in to two sections – one for those who have tripped at work, and the other for those who have tripped in a general public area.
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The Occupiers Liability Act places an important duty on those in control of a premises to take all reasonable steps to ensure visitors to their premises are not in any danger. Reasonable steps can be all sorts of things – like risk assessments to stamp out tripping hazards, and making sure there is no way something could fall and injure somebody.

Advertising signs and hoardings, widely used in today’s heavily commercialised society, can actually pose quite a danger if health and safety isn’t considered. We have seen circumstances in the past where:
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A weak floorboard bends inwards; or perhaps concrete in an outdoor area has cracked and is falling inwards due to traffic – a person will not generally notice if there is a dip in the flooring. It’s not easy to spot. But if you walk over it you are liable to either trip or fall if your ankle is twisted or gives way because of the sudden change in the contour of the surface.

So what happens if you are in a shop and you fall because of a dip in the ground? Or perhaps it happens in the workplace? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation?

Well let’s take a look at the law – starting with public places and then moving on to work accidents as differing laws apply!
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Factories are generally hazardous places. With heavy plant, equipment, and machinery in constant operation, health and safety is of paramount importance in factories and those in charge have a number of duties to ensure that employees are not injured in the line of duty.

Whilst most accidents probably involve equipment, slipping on wet floors are common in factories as they are in any other workplaces. Leaks from machinery, whether its oil or water, is an obvious one. People could walk grease and oil around the floor if it sticks to their boots as well. Having boots to try and prevent as much as possible a slipping accident is a point in itself.
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Supermarkets are busy places – it’s easy to see this as store assistants are constantly restocking shelves with stock cages and pallets. As Christmas draws closer and closer, the stores are only going to get busier and busier. That means more people, and potentially more pallets!

So, what happens if you are shopping along and you trip and fall due to a pallet on the ground? Can you make a claim for personal injury compensation against the supermarket?
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As the weather gets colder and colder, more and more potholes are likely to appear over the coming months. Some can spring up in such a short time and can grow to a fairly large size in a short period of time as well.

You may have heard of, or understand, the concept that a pothole has to be of a certain size in order to make a claim for personal injury compensation. This is true – Section 41 of the Highways Act says that those responsible for an area only need to take action if a defect is deemed to be of a reasonable danger. What’s classed as reasonable is a grey area, and most lawyers use the “one inch rule” to say that the defect has to be of at least one inch in depth / height to have a good chance of succeeding.
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