Fall in a public place

Nora is a lady in her 70’s who sustained a bad fracture to her left wrist when she was caused to trip on a pothole on a public footpath.  The local authority argued that they were not responsible for the creation of the pothole as it was caused by “wear and tear”.  

They claimed that they were exempt from liability.

I told Nora to take photographs of the pothole and to speak to the shop owners in the area where she fell to see if any of them have made complaints to the local authority about the state of the footpath.  From these discussions Nora found out that a number of the shop owners had written and called the local authority complaining about the state of the footpath and that despite promises by the local authority to get their workmen to come out and fix the pothole they had not done so.

Under the rules relating to liability the local authority are responsible if they do not react to complaints made.  When we told the local authority the name of the shop owners who had made the complaints and the fact that these shop owners were willing to go to Court to support Nora’s case the local authority had no option but to compensate Nora.

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