PUBLIC LIABILITY CLAIMS
If you were injured in a public place because someone failed to keep it reasonably safe, you may be able to claim compensation. That covers shops, pavements, restaurants, car parks, leisure centres and public services — anywhere the person responsible owed you a duty of care.
Injuries Direct is a specialist personal injury team acting for people across England and Wales on a no win, no fee basis. We're a trading style of NJS Law Limited, regulated by the Solicitors Regulation Authority.
FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE A CLAIM
FIND OUT IF YOU HAVE A CLAIM
— WHAT IS A PUBLIC LIABILITY CLAIM?
A public liability claim is a compensation claim brought when you're injured in a public place because the person or organisation responsible for that place failed to take reasonable care to keep it safe.
The legal basis is a duty of care. Shops owe one to their customers. Councils owe one to people using their pavements and roads. Restaurants, gyms, car park operators, salons and transport providers all owe one to the people who use them.
Critically, that duty is to take reasonable care — not to guarantee that nothing can ever go wrong. A claim doesn't succeed simply because you were hurt. It succeeds where the organisation responsible fell short of what could reasonably have been expected of them, and you were injured as a result.
Two questions usually decide these claims:
Should they have known about the hazard? A spillage that's been on a supermarket floor for an hour is very different from one that happened thirty seconds earlier.
Did they have a reasonable system in place? Regular inspections, prompt cleaning, warning signs. Where a system existed and was followed, a claim is harder. Where it didn't, or wasn't, it's considerably stronger.