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Shop owner responsible for paving slab trip

Partner and personal injury expert, Jonathan West, has won almost £5,000 in compensation from a shop owner for a woman who tripped on a paving slab when leaving the shop.

paving slab trip

Loose paving slab on which Caroline tripped

Caroline Brown was visiting a friend in Bedford and had called to get some lunch from the Cottage Bakery.  She had parked her car outside the shop.  When she left the shop and walked towards her car, she tripped over one of the flagstones that was sticking up.

Paving slab trip exacerbated the existing injury

At the time, she had a surgical shoe on one of her feet as she had a pre-existing condition upon which she’d had an operation a couple of weeks earlier.   She noticed that the bandages beneath the surgical shoe had come loose and stitches were coming undone. She had also grazed her elbow.

She returned to her friend’s house (she was able to drive her automatic car) about ten minutes away and then went to hospital where the stitches and bandages were repaired. The fall had caused her foot, which had been repairing, to swell up again and she had to take strong painkillers to relieve the pain.

Pain caused by the accident meant Caroline couldn’t spend a lot of time on her feet over the next few months and she needed a lot of help with everyday tasks.  Medical examination confirmed that the accident exacerbated the original foot injury and delayed recovery.

Bakery has duty of care, not council

Caroline contacted Graysons and Jonathan took up her case.  Originally it was thought that she had tripped on a public highway and so the council was pursued.  However, it transpired that the slab upon which Caroline had tripped was part of the shop property and so Jonathan contacted the bakery owner. The owner denied liability at first so Jonathan issued proceedings.  However, he was able to negotiate a settlement of £4,750 before the case got to court.

paving slab trip

Jonathan West

Jonathan says “The interesting thing about this case is the duty of care owed to Caroline.  The paving was not the council’s responsibility, although pedestrians would not have known that: it was the bakery’s.  As Caroline had been into the shop, the owner owed her a duty of care.  Had someone simply walked past the shop and tripped on the paving slab, the claim would have been more difficult to pursue, although not impossible.”

Clearly, the bakery owner did not take his responsibility seriously, as the paving slab was still loose almost two years later.

If you have had an accident in a public place and you think that someone else is responsible, contact our experts now.  We will arrange a free of charge meeting in which we can discuss your case and advise on its likely success.

You can also find out more about accidents in public places on our web pages.

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