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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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If you are asked to move heavy furniture at work, it’s probably going to be quite difficult to move by yourself. Normally help is required to do it safely. But what if you are asked to lift heavy furniture all by yourself?

The applicable law is The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992. Regulation 4 (b) states that each employer shall:

(i) make a suitable and sufficient assessment of all such manual handling operations to be undertaken…

(ii) take appropriate steps to reduce the risk of injury to those employees arising out of their undertaking any such manual handling operations to the lowest level reasonably practicable

This puts a duty on your employer to make sure that any manual handling tasks that are done are safe. So if your employer asks you to move heavy furniture and you are injured as a result, they are either failing to properly assess the task, or ignoring the fact that the task is clearly dangerous in the first place.
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There are a lot of rules and regulations that your employer must abide by to ensure that the safety of all staff is maintained as much as possible. When it comes to the floor surfaces, the duty is clear, as per The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 – these state the following:

12.—(1) Every floor in a workplace and the surface of every traffic route in a workplace shall be of a construction such that the floor or surface of the traffic route is suitable for the purpose for which it is used.

(2) Without prejudice to the generality of paragraph (1), the requirements in that paragraph shall include requirements that—

(a)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.

For the purposes of this article, the key parts are the bits bolded above. This puts a clear duty on your employer to make sure that all traffic routes are safe to navigate.
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Whether you agree with health and safety or not, we live and work in a world full of rules and regulations. Working at height potentially poses a risk to health and safety and this is why the Government introduced the Work at Height Regulations, which came into force on the 6^th April 2005. The regulations apply to all working at height instances where there is a risk of a fall that is liable to cause personal injury.

It is clear why the Government decided that more regulation in the area was necessary. According to statistics posted on the Health and Safety Executive website, falls from heights accounted for 46 fatal work accidents and around 3,350 major injuries in 2005/06. It was said at the time that falls from heights was the single biggest cause of workplace deaths and one of the main causes of major injury. As the statistics suggest, if you fall from height we are generally talking about serious injury or death. Obviously not all falls from height will lead to serious injury; it will depend on the height in question and the circumstances of the particular case. Injuries could be relatively minor but if you have sustained injury which was not your fault, it is still your right to claim.
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If you have been injured in an accident at work, such as by slipping on a wet floor, you may be able to claim compensation. Ordinarily the claim would be against your employer presuming that they own the premises in which the accident occurred. This could differ in certain circumstances. For example if you worked in a council building which let offices out to various companies. Under the terms of the contract your employer is likely to be responsible for the offices which they let. Say for example your accident occurred in the corridor or in the communal kitchen area – this may be an area which the council are responsible for. However if the accident occurred at your place of work and this is your employers own building, any claim would be against your employer.

In terms of slipping on a wet floor at work, we would consider whether there was any warning of the danger. Was there a wet floor sign in place? If a wet floor sign was not in place then it would be more difficult for the Defendant to deny liability. Even if there was a wet floor sign, this does not necessarily mean that you cannot claim. We would query whether the wet floor sign was clearly visible or whether it was obstructed. In law you often hear the phrase “every case is different”. Well this is true and this is the reason you need to speak to a team of experienced and dedicated personal injury lawyers.
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The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 exist to put a duty on employers to look after the health and safety of their employees; with the ultimate goal being to avoid injuries at work. One of the most commonly applicable regulations is that of the above, as this places the duty on your employer to make sure that all traffic routes in the workplace are safe to navigate.

Regulation 12.—(1) states that “Every floor in a workplace and the surface of every traffic route in a workplace shall be of a construction such that the floor or surface of the traffic route is suitable for the purpose for which it is used.”  Stairs at work fall within the category of traffic routes – and given that falling down a set of stairs can cause serious injury as you may be falling from a height, the regulations are even more important to abide by.

Slips on Stairs

A slip will normally be caused due to a spillage of some nature, or perhaps a leak, or perhaps from a colleague or hired cleaner mopping the stairs. For your employer to abide by the regulations above, slipping hazards need to be prevented as much as possible – so when it comes to spillages, a system of inspection and maintenance should be used to identify any hazards and rectify them immediately. If your employer fails to have such a system, they may be liable for compensation.
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As with most things that can pose a danger to your health, there are specific regulations for people who have to work at height. These regulations are there for your employer to make sure that any activities you are instructed to undertake that involve working at height do not pose a danger to you.

The applicable regulation is The Work at Height Regulations 2005. To cite some of the important sections of the regulations:

Organisation and Planning

4.—(1) Every employer shall ensure that work at height is—

(a)properly planned;

(b)appropriately supervised; and

(c)carried out in a manner which is so far as is reasonably practicable safe, and that its planning includes the selection of work equipment in accordance with regulation 7.
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Many jobs, particularly those involving a great deal of manual handling, put people at risk of sustaining a twisting back injury. It doesn’t take much to twist whilst carrying a box to injure your back. Whether you pull some ligaments or dislocate a disc in your back, the pain can be agonising and severely debilitating.

If your job involves manual handling, there is an important duty on your employer to prove you with manual handling training and instruction. The Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992 state the following:
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If you have sustained injury as a result of a pothole in the workplace then you may be entitled to claim compensation. Of course we deal with many claims in relation to potholes but many are in relation to accidents on the street in a public place. The difference is that if you trip or sustain injury due to a pothole in a public place then the council are probably the authority responsible. If you trip or sustain injury due to a pothole in the workplace, such as in the works yard, then any claim would be against the employer if the land is owned by them. If the land is rented then it could be the landlord’s responsibility. But usually it would be the employer’s responsibility to ensure the land is safe and to ensure workers are not injured as a result of any defect (such as a pothole for example).

When we are talking about the workplace, The Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992 apply. These regulations do contain a specific part in relation to the organisation of traffic routes. The regulations state:
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The building industry can be a dangerous place to work and many workers in this industry are contract workers meaning that they work on numerous sites from week-to-week which they may not necessarily be familiar with. When builders are contracted to work on a particular site they must adhere to the health and safety rules and procedures on that site.

For example, builders may be responsible for making sure any scaffolding erected is safe. There is also a responsibility to keep tools and equipment out of traffic routes where they may cause obstruction for other people to trip on – whether it’s a colleague or a member of the public. When working on site there may be other firms of contractors on site or other workers who work at that particular site on a permanent basis. This is why contractors are required to have an induction and health and safety briefing before commencing work.
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