Slip, Trip and Fall Claims

What Do You Need to Show?

Direct Answer: Under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1957, an occupier owes lawful visitors a duty to take reasonable care to keep them reasonably safe for the purpose they were invited or permitted to be there. A claim succeeds by showing that duty was breached — a known or reasonably discoverable hazard that wasn't fixed or warned about within a reasonable time — not simply that an accident happened.

This matters because occupiers are not insurers of every visitor's safety. A freshly spilled drink that nobody has had a realistic chance to notice or clean up is a different case from a spillage left for an hour with no warning sign, or a broken paving slab the local authority has been told about repeatedly and done nothing about. The law is looking at what the occupier knew or ought to have known, and whether their response was reasonable.

A different, narrower duty applies if you were a trespasser rather than a lawful visitor. Under the Occupiers' Liability Act 1984, the occupier must not act with reckless disregard for a danger they know or believe exists and know or believe a trespasser might encounter — a materially higher bar for a claimant to clear than the 1957 Act's duty to lawful visitors.

Common Settings

• Shops and supermarkets — spillages, trailing cables, obstructed aisles, uneven flooring
• Council-maintained land — broken pavements, potholes, poorly lit public walkways
• Workplaces — often overlaps with an employers' liability claim if the hazard was created by your employer's own failure
• Private premises and events — the occupier's duty applies whether the premises are commercial or residential

Building Your Evidence

Photograph the hazard as soon as possible — floors get remopped and defects get repaired quickly once an accident is reported, and the evidence can disappear within hours. Note the exact time and location, ask whether CCTV covers the area, get contact details for anyone who saw it happen, and report the accident formally (an accident book entry, or a report to the council) so there's a contemporaneous record independent of your own account.