Accidents on Public Land
When you are on public land, the person or organisation responsible for that land may owe you a duty of care to ensure the land is reasonably safe for you to use. This will often be a local authority or council but may be a school or a company. Most of the time, the organisation will have public liability insurance to pay for compensation if someone gets injured on that land. A claim for compensation for injuries sustained whilst on public land is often called a public liability claim.
There are many different types of public land including roads, pavements, parks, schools, libraries, some footpaths and bridleways and some businesses. All of them will have the same duty to make sure their land is reasonably safe and not in a state of disrepair. They can do this by inspecting and maintaining their land regularly and promptly fixing problems with the land when those problems are reported to them or picked up on an inspection. If the organisation fails to maintain and inspect their land properly, they might be in breach of their duty of care.
Examples of public liability claims include:
- Slips, trips or falls caused by potholes
- Trips on dangerous footpaths
- Trips on uneven paving stones
- Falls caused by defective repair work to roads
- Falls caused by dangerous things left in roads by other companies such as utilities companies
- Slips on icy roads, surfaces or pavements that have not been treated by grit in poor weather
- Slips on spillages
- Trips on tree roots which have come up to the surface
- Injuries from falling objects such as tree branches
Suffering an injury in a public place is often an unpleasant experience. You may feel like you want to just go home and get away from the area. There are however a few things you could do that would help if you later decided to make a claim:
- First and foremost, seek medical advice to make sure you get the treatment you need and tell the medical practitioner what happened
- If you can, take pictures of the area you fell
- Report the accident to the council or other person responsible for the land and, if they have one, put it in the accident book
- Keep a separate note of what you say when you report the accident, who you reported it to and when
- Take names and addresses of any witnesses to the accident
If you don’t manage to do all of that, please do not worry as our experienced public liability accident claim solicitors will help you with your claim. At Liverpool Legal our friendly, expert public liability solicitors would be happy to discuss your claim on a no win no fee basis. Click here to email our pubic liability solicitors or call us on 0151 702 5400.