Compensation for Accidents at Hotels
Hotels owe a duty of care to their visitors and may be sued for negligence if a guest or employee is injured on the premises through no fault of their own. Like all public establishments, hotels are bound by the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 to take all reasonable measures to prevent injuries among lawful visitors to the premises. When they breach this duty of care and a guest or employee is injured, a hotel can be held legally liable and obliged to pay compensation which will be covered by the business’s mandatory public liability insurance.
Slips, Trips and Falls at Hotels
Guests may slip or trip, fall and injure themselves at a hotel, with common causes including:
- Slippery floors in indoor areas lacking warning signs.
- Spilled food and drinks in hotel restaurants and bars.
- Poor lighting in corridors, stairwells and outdoor areas.
- Poor maintenance of carpeting and fixtures (e.g. banisters, bathroom rails).
- Defective furniture collapses (e.g. dining room chairs, bar stools).
- Hazards in hotel car parks (e.g. ice, potholes, discarded litter).
- Hazards in hotel gardens, swimming pools and other outdoor areas.
All these dangers are usually the result of poor maintenance routines and systems of cleaning, inspection and supervision.
Other Causes of Hotel Accidents
Guests may be burned in hotel bathrooms by faulty taps or exposed heating pipes. Electrical appliances provided in rooms such as sockets and radiators can cause electric shocks and burns if they are defective or missing the necessary safety covers, while a leaking radiator may emit dangerous levels of carbon monoxide. Other common accidents at hotels include falls down stairs lacking either proper safety rails or adequate lighting, cuts from broken glass and trips over electric cables.
Food Poisoning and Hygiene Issues at Hotels
Infections and illnesses can spread very quickly in establishments like hotels where people are in close contact with one another. Kitchens and guest bedrooms must be kept in a sanitary state, and the efficiency of the hotel’s system of work is essential in minimising the risk of unsanitary conditions causing illness. In recent years, a number of problems have been recorded at UK hotels related to sanitation and hygiene including:
- E. coli and Salmonella disease outbreaks.
- Norovirus outbreaks and related gastrointestinal illnesses.
- Mass food poisoning from hotel buffet food.
Case Study: Compensation for Falling Down Hotel Stairs
Ms B was staying at a hotel in the UK, and injured herself after slipping and falling down stone steps in the hotel that led down to the health spa facilities on the basement floor. She damaged muscles in her neck, shoulder and back in the fall, and an ambulance was called to take her to hospital where she was kept overnight for observation.
Ms B’s husband was with her and filed an accident report with the hotel stating that the stone steps had been recently cleaned and not dried properly prior to his wife falling down them. Ms B suffered upper body pain and weakness for weeks following her fall, and her much-anticipated holiday was effectively ruined.
Ms B got in touch with Bartletts Solicitors, and we agreed to represent her on a no win no fee basis in a compensation claim against the hotel’s owners. We wrote to them and their insurers, pointing out that the stone steps should have been clean and dry before the health spa admitted guests on the day in question.
Under the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 the hotel had a responsibility to provide safe premises for its guests. In this case the negligence of the hotel’s cleaning staff, and by extension its owners, had directly caused Ms B’s injuries and she was therefore entitled to compensation. The hotel and its insurers admitted liability for the accident, and Ms B received £3,000 for her injuries, as well as loss of enjoyment of her holiday.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip on Spillage at Hotel
Ms B was having breakfast in her hotel’s dining area when she slipped and fell on some orange juice that had been spilled by another guest, spraining her ankle and tearing ligaments in her knee. Hotel staff called an ambulance, and Ms B was taken to the local hospital’s A&E. Doctors applied a plaster cast to her leg, and she was later discharged on crutches with orders to rest and avoid putting any weight on her leg while her muscles and ligaments healed.
Ms B’s husband had filed an accident report with the hotel and complained to its management, which refused to accept responsibility for the accident, despite several other guests confirming that the spilled juice had been on the floor for some time prior to Ms B slipping on it.
Ms B got in touch with Bartletts Solicitors after reading about our experience of successfully suing hotels for accidents involving guests. We wrote to the hotel’s owners stating that, in this instance, they had not taken the necessary ‘reasonable’ measures to protect guests from the risk of injury.
It was later confirmed that the hotel’s restaurant had been short staffed on the morning of the accident, and the normal system of inspection and cleaning in the dining area had broken down. The spillage that caused Ms B’s injuries should have been cleared up within a reasonable time frame, and the hotel had negligently failed in this regard. After further correspondence, the hotel’s owners accepted liability for the accident and Ms B received £2,600 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Slip on Wet Ramp at Hotel
Mr A was injured while attending a wedding reception at a country hotel, and later successfully claimed compensation from the hotel’s owners. At the evening dinner and dancing event, Mr A was looking for the toilets and found one available in the outdoor courtyard. As he was leaving the toilets, he slipped on the wooden access ramp which was wet and slippery due to the rainy conditions that night and fell awkwardly, tearing ligaments in his ankle and badly bruising his shoulder.
Mr A was assisted by other guests and driven to a nearby hospital’s A&E unit, where he was attended to by a consultant orthopaedic surgeon. Mr A was on crutches for two weeks after the accident and was unable to work for over a month. He also required extensive physiotherapy sessions to regain full mobility in both his ankle and shoulder.
Bartletts Solicitors went on to represent Mr A in a no win no fee personal injury claim against the hotel’s parent company. In correspondence with the company and its insurers, we maintained that the hotel should have had measures in place to ensure that fixtures like the access ramps outside the courtyard toilets were kept free from rainwater, or else were covered in anti-slip material to prevent them from becoming slippery and dangerous.
The hazardous condition of the ramp was a breach of the Occupier’s Liability Act 1957 and the duty of care the hotel owed Mr A as a visitor. We were able to gain an admission of liability from the hotel within a few months confirming the fact that the establishment’s negligence was the primary cause of our client’s injuries. Mr A later received £4,750 in compensation.
Case Study: Compensation for Trip Over Cable at Hotel
Mrs V was on a weekend break with her husband when she was injured while checking into their hotel through no fault of her own after tripping over an electrical power cable in the lobby. The marble floor was being polished by a member of the hotel’s cleaning staff at the time, and as the floor was black, it was difficult to see the trailing power cable. Mrs V tripped and fell forwards, spraining her wrist and dislocating her finger in the accident.
Her weekend break was effectively ruined because of her injuries, but she met with an unsympathetic response from the hotel’s deputy manager (the full-time manager was away that weekend), who told her that she should have noticed that the floor was being cleaned at the time of the accident, and would not even offer a refund on the couple’s stay.
Mrs V’s husband contacted Bartletts Solicitors a few weeks later having read online about a similar case we handled previously. Our lawyers advised him that his wife had strong grounds for making a personal injury claim against the hotel, and subsequently agreed to represent her on a no win no fee basis.
We sent a letter of claim to the hotel’s insurers, arguing that the hotel had breached the duty of care that they owed Mrs V as a legitimate visitor because the trailing electrical power cable was an obvious tripping hazard, and cleaning of this kind should not have been carried out while guests were checking in. The hotel’s parent company acknowledged responsibility for the accident, and we were able to negotiate a compensation settlement for Mrs V totalling £2,750.
Solicitors Claiming Compensation From Hotels
Provided your claim relates to an injury or illness at a hotel that has taken place in the last three years, Bartletts offers free legal advice and no win no fee solicitors for hotel accident compensation claims. The vast majority of the claims we take on are successful. Apart from financial compensation for pain and suffering, you can also claim for loss of earnings, the cost of medical treatment, travel expenses and the cost of personal care you may require while recovering from an injury or illness.
