Slipped and Fell, No Signage = No Win No Fee

MasterPoo

Hi

Please feel free to move this to the relevant section if I've posted in the wrong one.

Last week I was walking through a popular shopping centre and I slipped and fell in liquid, there was no signage, the Centre's security saw the whole thing and my 21 year old son was also a witness as he was with me at the time.

In the fall I hurt my foot and my back I was given first aid and after a few minutes went home. I had a terrible nights sleep due to pain, so next morning I went to my GP who prescribed pain killers and advised that I had probably sprained a muscle in my back, foot and leg during the fall.

I also broke a bottle of just bought perfume.

I filled out a accident form and spoke to the centre's manager, he advised that someone from Customer Care would call me.

I got a call a few days later, and in a nutshell they apologised for the fall, and stated that as a gesture of goodwill they would be willing to reimburse my broken perfume bottle which is great. I'm now almost finished taking the painkillers and have booked a followup appointment with my GP because I'm still experiencing pain.

My question is do I just google a "No Win, No Fee" company for loss of earnings as I was unable to work the day after (I'm a self employed contractor). Can anyone recommend a reputable No Win, No Fee company?

Thanking you!

InsideInsurance

No win no fee will only be interested if your claim goes above the small track limit - £1,000 for injury.

Do you have legal expenses cover on your Home insurance? They normally cover trips and slips claims and allow you to keep all your comp. If you do go down the no win route then double check what percentage they will be retaining from your winnings as these can vary a fair amount.

mufi

It's not as easy as many think to win compensation for a fall.


Provided the shopping centre can prove that it has checking systems in place for spillages, backed up by CCTV if there is any in the area, and that the checks were actually carried out (on paper at least), any claim is likely to fail. House insurance legal cover is your best bet initially, if you have it. Won't cost you anything, but unless there's more than about a 50% chance of winning the case, they won't proceed with it.


Good luck.

Rossim1985

mufi wrote: »

It's not as easy as many think to win compensation for a fall.


Provided the shopping centre can prove that it has checking systems in place for spillages, backed up by CCTV if there is any in the area, and that the checks were actually carried out (on paper at least), any claim is likely to fail. House insurance legal cover is your best bet initially, if you have it. Won't cost you anything, but unless there's more than about a 50% chance of winning the case, they won't proceed with it.

Good luck.

Mufi is correct. Large shopping centres are used to this sort of thing, it happens every day, so they are usually very good at having a programme of regular inspections and cleaning and documenting all of it.

To win any claim you have to prove the centre was negligent, which is hard to do if they were following their usual inspection regime. If the spillage had only just happened say 2 minutes before you fell over, naturally it would be difficult to say that the centre should have picked up on the spillage and put up signage before your unfortunate fall.

Slightly different but a similar principle, a few years ago I drove over a manhole cover that was sticking out at an angle. It blew two tyres and caused damage to my cars wheels. I made a claim against the local council and liability was denied. They were able to demonstrate that they had carried out a recent inspection of the road surface and had also not had any previous reports of the manhole cover being broken. In fact I called the council whilst waiting for the recovery truck and they had a man with a van out fixing the man hole no less than 30 minutes later!

stator

But if the spillage was made by a member of their staff they would have known about it immediately.

mufi

stator wrote: »

But if the spillage was made by a member of their staff they would have known about it immediately.

Yes, but nowhere does the OP allege the centre's staff caused the spillage. And even if they did, one would have to prove it.


The compensayshun culture is largely an urban myth. This I know because I had a major accident in a supermarket which was not my fault, could not prove negligence (no CCTV, paper records all as they should have been), plus a close relative is a personal injury lawyer, so I had more advantages than most. All I wanted was my out of pocket expenses paid (these eventually ran into thousands), but the end result was that I got not a bean in recompense, plus had the joy of an ambulance to A&E, surgery, and inpatient and outpatient treatment. I shall never recover full mobility.