Christmas – the season of goodwill, and the favourite time of the year for shopaholics. Our towns and cities are bustling with people spending their money on their friends and family and as Christmas approaches the last minute shoppers are lining the streets and the supermarkets to make sure they buy their gifts in time for the big day.
The combination of high volumes of people and retailers selling more and more stock can lead to a spike in the amount of people making a claim for personal injury compensation. One common scenario is when someone is injured by something sticking out from somewhere.
To give you some examples:
- Material sticking out from under a display or hoarding.
- A part of an actual sign or hoarding sticking out dangerously in to a walkway.
- Stock sticking out from shelves.
At this time of year when retailers are filling their stores to the brim with stock and with people rushing around for gifts can be the perfect recipe for disaster. So if you trip over something sticking out in a shop or supermarket, can you make a slip, trip or fall claim for compensation?
Your Rights
You are covered by the Occupiers Liability Act which means that whoever is in control of a premises should take all reasonable steps to prevent you from being injured. So whether you have a claim can come down to what steps have been taken. The best questions to ask are:
- Why is the hazard there?
- How long has it been there for?
If it was purposefully placed there without taking in to consideration that it could be a hazard, you should have a claim for compensation. We would argue that it was a dangerous protrusion that should never have been there.
If it’s something that has ‘appeared’ over time, perhaps stock has become loose and is sticking out because of people looking through shelves etc then it could come down to whether there are any systems of inspection and maintenance in place to spot such hazard and rectify them. If staff had placed them like that to fill out shelves, that’s different; we’d argue that’s clearly negligent.
Even where a hazard has been caused by customers, at this time of year when staff are so busy concentrating on serving people, hazards can be left and missed. It is wise to start a claim immediately so we can get access to CCTV footage that might prove how long a hazard has been there for. This could help you win your claim.
