Can you be sued for gritting pavements if someone hurts themselves? Ask the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers
So you decide to do the community-spirited thing and help to clear ice and snow from your public street. Then someone slips over and hurts themselves. Can you be sued?
John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers might be able to help.
Legal experts said home owners could fall victim to the same laws if they tried to clear an icy path but failed to do the job properly. John McQuater, president of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers, admitted: “If you do nothing you cannot be liable. If you do something, you could be liable to a legal action.”
That doesn’t sound too good.
But fortunately John McQuater of the Association of Personal Injury Lawyers is much more encouraging in the Guardian:
By clearing the snow from your paths, you do not invite any extra liability that wouldn’t have existed had you done nothing and left the snow on the ground. The only circumstance in which you might invite a claim was if you acted completely unreasonably, and somehow created a new latent hazard that had not existed before your actions.
I’m glad that’s cleared the matter up.
Elf and safety gorn mad or just very sloppy reporting? You decide.
[...] If you clear thesnow from your street and someone slips over can you be sued? So you decide to do the community-spirited thing and help to clear ice and snow from your public street. Then someone slips over and hurts themselves. Can you be sued? [...]
His words aren’t quite contradictory. If you do something, and it is unreasonable, you could be in trouble. If you do nothing, you can’t be liable, although the whole concept of negligence is based on people not doing things.
It’s most telling that the Telegraph asked “Health and Safety experts” about the law, whilst the Guardian asked a lawyer. Having been interviewed by the Telegraph I’d not be surprised if they were highly selective with their quote to find something that fit their piece.
Tim,
It does appear that way. I’ve asked APIL to clarify the matter.
The Telegraph does seem to be spinning a litigious society narrative. And you’re right, if you want information on legal matters, lawyers are the best people to ask.
Mail Online has got a similar story with a quotation from John McQuater identical to the Telegraph’s one.
Thanks for posting this – hopefully someone will be able to provide a definitive answer.
I was told that by clearing the snow one day, it could mean ice the next, and people find it easier to walk through deep snow than on a sheet of ice. So, by being helpful on one day, I was creating a hazard for the days to come.
Another concern for me was that the people who said this to me could potentially be the very ones to slip – and could then also say they warned me.
I’m so glad it’s thawing now – but would still like to know the answer.
[...] thinking on comment moderation seems similar to that old (and not entirely true) chestnut about gritting: if you grit your land and someone falls on the ice they might be able to sue you for not having [...]