Given the number of people who visit restaurants on a daily basis, it is impossible to completely eliminate the risk of accidents occurring. Under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957, restaurants owe a duty of care to all ‘lawful’ visitors to their premises, and must take all reasonable measures to protect them from the risk of injury while visiting.
A high percentage of personal injury claims against restaurants relate to slip, trip and fall accidents. Wet floors, discarded food, drinks and wrappers are the most common causes of such accidents. The owner of the premises must guarantee your protection from such hazards as far as reasonably possible, and will be held legally responsible for accidents and injuries caused by the negligence of management or staff.
Slips on floors at restaurants most often result from human errors on the part of the restaurant’s staff. The general rule is that all potential hazards to customers and staff must be eliminated as soon as they are identified. An employee cleaning floor surfaces may leave them wet or covered with cleaning solution residue, making them slippery and dangerous.
Where such hazards exist and cannot be immediately resolved, staff are obliged to provide protective barriers and clear warning signs for customers. Restaurants must also ensure there are an adequate number of staff to deal with such risks.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip on Polished Floor in Restaurant
Our firm recently represented a client who was injured after slipping over in a restaurant due to the negligence of the establishment’s management. The smooth wooden floor in the restaurant had been polished one morning by a third party contractor before the business opened to serve lunch. Mr D and his wife were among the first customers to arrive that day, and as they were being shown to their reserved table, Mr D slipped and fell backwards onto the floor, wrenching his lower back and bruising his coccyx.
He was driven home by his wife and due to the pain in his lower back was forced to see his GP later that day. Mr D was prescribed painkillers and told to rest and avoid physical exertion while the soft tissues in his back healed. He was off work for the next two weeks and continued to experience pain and discomfort in his lower back for months afterwards.
Bartletts Solicitors went on the represent Mr D in a no win no fee personal injury claim against the restaurant’s parent company. We wrote to the latter party, outlining our client’s grounds for seeking compensation. It turned out that management at the restaurant had not left any instructions about the level to which the wooden floor was to be polished, and there was no one from the restaurant supervising the polishing operation.
Due to this, the floor had been overly polished by the time the duty manager opened the restaurant for the day, and was in a slippery and dangerous condition. The manager had been warned about the state of the floor by one of the waitresses working there, but no action was taken to do anything about it, neither were any warning signs put in place before the establishment opened to the public. The owners of the restaurant subsequently accepted liability for the accident, with Mr D receiving £3,500 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip on Fire Escape Stairs
Mr P was visiting a city centre bar and restaurant with a group of friends when he slipped and fell down the stairs of a fire escape. At the time of the accident, the stairs were soaked from drinks spilled by revellers at a 21st birthday party taking place in the bar. The fire escape was open to allow smokers to come and go without using the main entrance/exit.
Mr P was driven to hospital by a friend following the accident where x-rays found that he had fractured his wrist and strained soft tissues in his back. Mr P experienced considerable practical difficulties for months afterwards, including being unable to work for eight weeks in his job as a trainee chef. He complained to the management of the venue where the accident had taken place, but received no reply, prompting him to consider taking legal action.
Bartletts later represented Mr P in a no win no fee claim against the owners of the venue. Statements from our client’s friends who were with him on the night and photos of the fire exit stairs taken on a mobile phone confirmed our argument that the stairs had been in a slippery and hazardous state on the night of the accident, as they were covered in drinks spilled by revellers attending the 21st birthday party. The fire exit should not have been open in the first place as the venue’s management later admitted, and both these factors had directly caused Mr P’s injuries.
The venue had breached the duty of care they owed Mr P by failing to ensure their premises were safe for him as a lawful visitor. We were able to win an admission of partial liability from the venue owner’s insurance company, and Mr P subsequently received a cheque for £4,000 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip Caused by Rain and Sleet
During a period of heavy rain and sleet, Mr A dropped into a restaurant to shelter from the weather. As he walked into the restaurant, he slipped on the wet tiled floor near the entrance and fell over, spraining his wrist and damaging his elbow. The floor was slippery due to water from the shoes, jackets and umbrellas of the restaurant’s customers, however, no anti-slip matting had been laid down and no other measures had been taken to prevent the water accumulating.
The following day, Mr A visited his GP and had the details of his injuries recorded in his medical notes. He returned to the restaurant to make a formal complaint and was offered gift vouchers of negligible value by the manager, which he refused. Unable to get any further in resolving the matter, Mr A got in touch with Bartletts Solicitors to discuss his case, and later engaged us to make a personal injury claim against the restaurant.
We wrote to the restaurant’s owners advising them of the circumstances of Mr A’s accident, and then corresponded with the restaurant group’s insurers. We argued that staff at the outlet had had plenty of time on the day in question to deal with the rain and snow being trampled inside the entrance, but had failed to take the necessary action to minimise the risk of a customer slipping over and getting injured.
The restaurant had breached the duty of care it owed Mr A by failing to deal with an obvious slipping hazard and the foreseeable risk of an accident. Following an admission of partial liability from the restaurant, we were able to negotiate a compensation settlement on Mr A’s behalf totalling £2,750.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip in Restaurant Car Park
Mrs P had taken her two young children to a fast food restaurant as a treat during a day out shopping when she was involved in an accident. As the family were walking back to their vehicle following lunch at the fast food restaurant, Mrs P slipped and fell, twisting her foot inwards and tearing ligaments in her ankle. The accident was caused by food that had been dropped on the tarmac and crushed into the ground.
Mrs P was in severe pain and could not walk after the accident, but was able to call her husband who came to pick the family up and helped his wife file a complaint with the restaurant’s management. Mrs P’s ankle was painful and swollen, and it took her six weeks to fully recover from the injury, during which time her mobility was significantly impaired.
After not hearing anything for several months, Mrs P got in touch with Bartletts Solicitors, and we agreed to represent her on a no win no fee basis. We requested and received CCTV footage for the day in question, which clearly showed another customer walking across the car park and dropping part of a takeaway meal on the ground roughly an hour before Mrs P slipped over.
Mrs P was looking after her children at the time, so it was reasonable that she did not see the spilled ingredients lying in her path. Furthermore, an adequate system of inspection and cleaning at the restaurant would have identified and cleared up the spillage within a reasonable time frame. Mrs P later received a compensation settlement of £3,500.
Case Study: Compensation For Slip On Wheelchair Ramp
Mr K was pushing his baby daughter in a pushchair up the disabled access wheelchair ramp at the entrance to a restaurant that he was visiting with his family. As he was pushing the pram up the ramp, he lost his footing and slipped, tearing ligaments in his ankle and bruising his shoulder in the fall.
His daughter was unharmed in the accident, but Mr K was in severe pain and could not put any weight on his ankle. He decided to treat his injury at home using the PRICE procedure (Protection, Rest, Ice, Compression, Elevation), but the joint was still swollen and painful after four days and he decided to see his GP. Mr K eventually had to undergo months of physiotherapy to regain strength in his ankle, and was forced to take time off work due to his limited mobility.
After receiving no response to a complaint he made by letter to the restaurant’s owners, Mr K decided to seek legal advice, and we subsequently agreed to represent him on a no win no fee basis in a claim against the establishment. We wrote to them, stating that the wheelchair ramp was obviously dangerous as it did not have a non-slip surface or matting. Given that it was raining heavily on the night in question, it was reasonably foreseeable that someone using the ramp would slip on it and injure themselves.
Mr K’s wife had taken photographs of the ramp on her mobile phone at the time of the accident, and this helped in establishing the truth of our argument on her husband’s behalf. After further correspondence with the restaurant’s insurance company, we were able to obtain a full admission of liability, and Mr K later received a cheque for £3,500 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip at Pizza Restaurant
Mr A was involved in an accident while visiting a pizza restaurant. A child had spilled an ice cream dessert from the lunch buffet onto the floor next to his table. Mr A was walking past the table carrying his tray when he slipped on the spilled ice cream and fell over, wrenching his lower back in the process.
The child and his family had left the restaurant by the time of the accident, and before leaving had made staff aware of the spillage, yet no action had been taken to clear it up, despite the fact that the spilled ice cream was directly in the path of other diners. Mr A complained to staff and details of the incident were recorded in the restaurant’s accident book. He also took photographs of the spillage on his mobile phone.
Mr A was troubled by lower back pain in the days following the accident, and X-rays later showed that he had strained muscles in the lumbar region of his lower back. Mr A was off work for several weeks, and after taking legal advice, he decided to make a compensation claim against the pizza chain.
We wrote to the chain’s owners and insurers, stating that the primary cause of our client’s injury was a breakdown in the system of inspection and cleaning at the branch. Staff were alerted about the spilled ice cream, and should have dealt with it immediately given the obvious hazard it posed to diners. This contravened their duties laid out in the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, and we were ultimately able to secure an admission of liability from the restaurant chain’s insurers, with Mr A receiving £2,600 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Injured Restaurant Employee
Ms A worked in the kitchen at a branch of a national pizza chain. At the start of one shift she slipped on a wet floor that had recently been cleaned and fell awkwardly, feeling immediate pain in the knee which began to swell rapidly.
Ms A was driven to hospital where the doctors diagnosed a partially torn cruciate ligament injury, and applied a compression bandage to stabilise the joint and limit swelling. She stayed overnight in hospital and was confined to crutches for two weeks. Ms A required physiotherapy to regain full mobility in her knee, and was unable to return to work for four weeks after the accident.
Ms A engaged Bartletts Solicitors to handle a claim against her employers. We wrote to the pizza chain’s owners stating that Ms A’s injuries had been caused by their failure to maintain a safe place and system of work. If the floor had been recently cleaned and was still slippery, signs should have been posted to warn staff of the potential hazard. The company had therefore behaved negligently in failing to take reasonable measures to prevent the risk of injury. They eventually admitted liability for the accident, and Ms A received £3,250 in compensation.
Solicitors Claiming Compensation for Slips in Restaurants
Bartletts Solicitors has successfully claimed compensation for both customers and employees injured in slipping accidents at restaurants across the UK. Provided your claim against a restaurant relates to an accident that has taken place in the last three years, we can represent you on a no win no fee basis. Contact our solicitors today for free legal advice that you can rely on.
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For specialist advice on your personal injury claim, call us now on Liverpool 0151 227 3391 or Chester 01244 645830 or Wrexham 01978 360056 or complete a Free Online Enquiry and we will soon be in touch.
