Hit by falling plaster – advice from The Injury Lawyers

Being hit by any falling object can be bad enough – being hit by falling plaster from a roof or a wall could cause some serious injuries, including head or brain injuries.

So what happens if you are hit by falling plaster from a roof or a wall? Are you entitled to make a claim for personal injury compensation? If so, who do you pursue?

Falling plaster injury claims advice

In most claims, whether you can be successful or not is largely down to whether the accident was foreseeable and preventable. There are many ways in which this can be measured of course. When it comes to falling plaster, it will often be a question of how the plaster was able to fall off in the first place. I appreciate that this sounds rather obvious, but it is the important factor.

Sometimes plaster can fall down through disrepair. If this is the case then you may have a claim because the premises haven’t been maintained to a safe enough standard. It may be the case that whoever is responsible for the building knows that there is a problem – for example where you can see some plaster starting to crack or look unstable. It could be that the whole building is just simply in disrepair.

The plaster could have been applied badly, and if this is the case, you may have a claim against those in charge of the premises or even the plasterers / relevant contractors. Whether it’s simply a bodge job, or it has been applied incorrectly and hasn’t dried or set properly, or where the surface meant that applying the plaster there was dangerous, you may have a case.

These are just a few examples but they can show the importance of knowing how and why the plaster was able to fall in the first place. You may not know from the start how it was caused but that’s down for The Injury Lawyers to sort out for you as part of our investigations in to your claim.

Who do you claim against?

I have sort of touched on this above – and again it depends on how the accident happened.

Commonly it is the person(s) in charge of the premises, and you can normally sue them under The Occupiers Liability Act. If it happened at work, there are workplace regulations that apply instead, but the duties are normally fairly similar in any event.

You may have a general negligence case against builders, contractors, or plasters if it was down to a bad plastering job. If you are injured in rented premises then the relevant person or company to pursue would normally be the landlord or the letting agent.