Is it possible for people to make wrist ligament injury claims if they are injured in a fall in a supermarket? My mother fell on a wet patch in the frozen food section.
Wrist ligament injury claims for compensation can be made against the supermarket if it can be proven that the injury which resulted from the accident was sustained due to the negligence of the supermarket’s management staff. Supermarkets owe their customer’s a duty of care to be provided with a clean and safe shopping environment. This means that if an accident that resulted in injury occurred that could be been avoided, the supermarket owner or manager would more than likely be held responsible.
It must be noted however, that the supermarket’s duty of care is not “absolute”, meaning that wrist ligament injury claims may not be pursued against the store if it can be demonstrated that supermarket staff could not have identified the hazard and removed it in a “reasonable” length of time. For example, perhaps the wet patch appeared mere seconds before your mother fell and injured her wrist. It may be possible to access CCTV footage to determine the length of time the wet patch was present and the efforts staff took to remove it.
The most important procedure to carry out in order to support wrist ligament injury claims is to have the injury examined by a professional medical practitioner immediately after the accident occurs. First aid or self-administered treatment is not sufficient; as the victim’s official medical records need to be updated professionally to provide adequate evidence. Your mother should also have reported the accident to a staff member and had her injury noted in the supermarket’s Accident Report Book. If possible, the details of witnesses should have been gathered at the scene of the accident.
Your mother would be well advised in engaging with a solicitor at this stage of her claim for a wrist ligament injury. Her solicitor would be able to assist with the submission of her application for assessment to the Injuries Board Ireland and while waiting for consent from the supermarket, your mother’ s solicitor will be able to directly approach the supermarket’s insurers and attempt to negotiate a settlement in a far quicker time.
A solicitor would be able to answer any questions your mother may have about wrist ligament injury claims in the initial consultation that most solicitors offer without charge and could give a preliminary indication of how much compensation for a wrist injury she may be entitled to receive.