Slipped on a banana in supermarket - compensation?

ti1980

Firstly I hope your mum feels better really soon.

Those adverts can be very misleading. IMO they are not much different to the consolidation loans that are usually put inbetween them. They paint a very rosy picture of how things 'might' be but the reality is often very different.

They don't mention any of the stress that can be caused trying to persue a compensation claim which can take months if not years for anything to materialise.

Same with consolidation loans, they like to say how easy it is to borrow the money and they just gloss over the fact that if repayments are not made then it is more than likely you will lose your home.

I think you should definitely get some proper legal advice as they will know if it is worth proceeding with.

Hope it all gets resolved for your mum.

Let us know what you decide to do.

Tom_Jones

Personally I wouldn't go down the compensation route as your mum thankfully didn't get injured badly. Write a strong letter to the store about the incident and that your mother is still suffering pain, and I'll bet you they will offer you some form of compensation, be it in store vouchers. It just saves a lot of hassle and stress.

Astaroth

If all she has is a bruise or two and a hurt pride then the compensation will be next to nothing and the likes of the accident group wouldnt get involved as they can only claim their costs in cases over the small claims court limit (£1000 for personal injury). If you have legal expenses cover on your home insurance this would however cover you if they feel you have a reasonable chance for success.

So for a few quid your mother would need expert evidence of her injuries sustained, have her complete medical history trawled through (to make sure she has no conditions making it more likely for her to trip or fall) and then have to prove that the supermarket was negligent - as others have said, that they would have had reasonable knowledge of the banana being there and sufficient time to have dealt with it.

I disagree with the compensation culture and would say that if I was in the possition of having fallen and not serious hurt myself I would be blaming myself for not looking where my feet are instead of trying to put up the price of my grocery shopping - low cost claims like this are not insured by supermarkets so it hits their profit lines and they put up their prices to get the money back - your mother would end up paying all the compensation back over time.

Debt_Free_Chick

p1an0player wrote:

Thank you all very much for your views on this.

Some adverts give the impression that it's easy to get a few grand for a slip/trip like this, but the demise of companies like The Accident Group perhaps shows things are not so easy.

True - but they are only interested in the big claims where they can make shed loads of money. Money that is part of the claimant's compensation. And the success rate is not as high as they make out. They usually take on the easy, obvious cases - ones you would have won anyway, without their "help". They're not called ambulance chasers for nothing

Just to be clear, it wasn't a whole banana (which would have been easy to spot on the floor), but rather two or three small pieces of banana flesh which had already been squashed into the floor.

My gut feel is that was a bored toddler in a buggy :rotfl: Seriously, small pieces suggest that it was being eaten ... or rather, that a child didn't want to eat what mum had given him/her and discreetly disposed of it.

Not fair on your mum, I know ... but I'm less convinced that this is the supermarket's fault - sorry

Will have to discuss all this with my mum and see how she wants to proceed.

Mum was clearly upset and perhaps embarrassed at first, but as time goes by, she'll probably have a change of heart.

But the suggestion of a strong complaint locally to the store might result in a gesture of goodwill (flowers, vouchers etc). It would be nice to think that they sent her something to say "sorry". I think your chances are increased if you don't "rant", but point out that this could have been far more serious and you're concerned for the safety of other customers blah, blah, blah

Good luck

Gilchro1

Great idea. Claim compensation and push everyone's insurance premiums up once more. I know that your mother may have aches and pains but if everyone stopped suing for this type of thing, we might see our premiums not rise as fast.

sandhabibi

My father was involved in a car accident last year in which another car just pulled out into him, he had whiplash but didn't want to claim, and do you know even the other driver's insurance company tried to persuade him to claim but he said he didn't want his insurance to rise when it was no big deal. Anyway I think the supermarket involved will give your mum vouchers and flowers as a goodwill gesture and I'm sure that will cheer yr mum up knowing they haven't just shrugged off the incident.

homersimpson_3

last night i was in a supermarket and there was a jar which had fallen off the shelf - the contents & the glass jar was in pieces all over the floor next to a shelf. after 5-10 minutes of trying to find someone i reported it to the assistant who asked whether i could report it to customer services because otherwise you would have to clean it up and didn't want to do this because it wasn't her section. this would have meant i would have to walk another 5-10 minutes back to the front of the store and then after reporting walk again to the back of the store to finish off my shopping. i simply told her i was reporting it to her, it was a breach of health and saftey and a slip hazard. when i quoted health and safety she said ok. i went into the next aisle and within about 2 minutes she was coming back with the dust pan and brush- i just found this incredible and can understand why incidents like this happen. to their credit the staff in the store are usually very helpful.

lush_walrus

Accidents happen. If you hate the whole compensation culture, then Im sure you will see this for what it is an accident.