Have you slipped or fallen in a supermarket? Then you – like the following people – could be eligible for injury compensation.
A report published by the Daily Telegraph reveals that supermarkets award over $100 million to people who make slip and fall injury claims each year.
Apparently it’s grapes that “pose the biggest hazard” to shoppers, however, the Daily Telegraph states that lettuce, snow peas, beans and milk have all resulted in a supermarket accident claim or two.
In addition to this, rogue trolleys have also put a number of supermarkets in hot water. A recent case saw a young woman in Australia granted a whopping $30,000 after she became trapped beneath a trolley and caused severe damage to her knee.
She’s certainly not the only person to have made a supermarket injury claim in recent years. Here are just a few examples of cases that have found their way into the headlines.
Coles customer slips on cardboard
In 2013, the District Court was called on to decide whether or not Coles had breached its duty of care to a customer who slipped on a piece of cardboard.
The customer explained that she had gone to collect some dip from a cabinet in the supermarket when her leg went out from underneath her.
“I fell basically on my right shoulder into the … cold section of the cabinet and knocked lots of cheese and dips and things over in the cabinet,” she said. The customer believed a “paddle-pop stick and a piece of cardboard or something” was responsible for her fall.
While the customer’s compensation lawyers succeeded in demonstrating that Coles had breached its duty of care and got the District Court to award the injured woman just over $119,000, this decision was later overturned by the New South Wales Court of Appeal.
Woolworths customers slip on wet floors
In 2010, the Brisbane Times published an article about two women who made slip and fall injury claims against different branches of Woolworths.
The first, Michele Bradley, said she fell over in the fruit and vegetable section of her local Woolworths in 2009. The cause of the accident was a slippery, wet floor that was not properly sign-posted. As a result, she received “soft tissue and ligament damage” to her knee.
The second, a 63-year-old woman, claims she slipped on a wet floor, injuring her thumb, elbow and shoulder, and sued Woolworths for $252,501.
