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Posted By Adrian_Suarez
Last week a kid fell off a wall whilst allegedly triping over some wooden planks that were taken out of one of our sites and broke her arm. The wall was over 2 meters hight but had no edge protection or handrailings. At the time the kid was being supervised by her mother.
Less than 24 hours after the event and we have alredy been informed that they will be claiming against us. Surely we cannot be blamed for this incident considering that the wall does not belong to us and that the mother was there and allowed the little kid to play at such a height.
Your thoughts in this matter will be appreciated.
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Posted By Gff
Well
You say that she tripped over wooden planks that where taken from your site. How where they taken, where they stolen, how did they get stolen was you site secured sufficiently, if yes how was it secured
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Posted By Sally
Can I just clarify - was the wall on your premises or in any way anything to do with you? Were the planks just laid on the top of the wall?
My reaction would be to fight this one all the way. The mother was there with the child, she chose to allow her to play on the wall. It is paying out on this type of claim without defending them that perpetuates the climate of 'it must be someone elses fault'
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Posted By garyh
I would consider the following elements we all love and understand:-
- Did you owe a duty of care? (I think yes)
- Did they suffer loss? (Yes)
- Did you breach the DOC (Debatable)
- Was is foreseeable (Yes / maybe)
- Were you negligent (?)
Overall what would a reasonable person think?
If you can't answer all these OK you may have a problem!
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Posted By Adrian_Suarez
The wall had nothing to do with us and the wood was allegedly moved there, although when we arrived to investigate the wood was situated somewhere else.
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Posted By TBC
I agree with Sally, but your insurers will probably dangle a carrot in front of the claimant and it will settle. Lots of insurers in the past would pay up to £10,000 without the need for courts. I don't know what the current figure is, but I would fight it. The mother has to take responsible for looking after her little child.
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Posted By Christopher
Hi Adrien
I don't consider that I have enough information to help you on this case. However, I am mindful of a case where a trolley belonging to a large supermarket was taken to a carpark and left. There were clear sign to state that the trolley should not be removed from the store carpark. A car drove into the trolley and the insurers paid up. You could argue that the driver should have been more observant.
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Posted By Gff
This can be debated to all lengths and forever but at the end of the day the bottom line is your insurer will decide if they will defend it or not
Provide all the information you to your insurer or solicitor pass any correspondence that you get to them promptly
The only duty that you owed in this case was to secure the materials alleged to have cause the injury. They may well have been there at the time on the incident and moved between that time and when you checked. Perhaps you can demonstrate there was an intervening cause or 'But for' the planks being there the incident would still have happend.
It really in the hands of your insurers now
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Posted By Jeepster
You are probably innocent in all this, but I have been drawn into this sort of thing before and you can easily rack up some serious costs. Nevermind the time and hassle to yourself and the company. Typically the court will look at nice little girl with broken arm and nasty company that does not care !
My advice is to get the solicitors to offer an out of court £500 on a deadline for acceptance (word it as a good will jesture as not to accept liability, just in case they continue with the court case) and fix your security so it cannot happen again and use it as a learning experience.
I always hate to give in, but it is often the fastest and cheapest way, it also keeps the company name out of the papers!
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Posted By B Smart
What an uncaring lot you all are. The poor wee girl broke her arm. I know that some people will try it on, but I doubt it very much that they will go as far as breaking a child's arm to get a claim, or am I just naive and there really is no hope for humanity.
Bottom line the insurers will pay. Next time any of you are passing a construction site (no matter how small) check it out for security and look for anything belonging to the site posing a threat to the safety of any passersby and I think you will be surprised.
B. Smart
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Posted By David Bannister
Yes, very sorry for the girl whose parent allowed her to do this dangerous activity.
Liaise very closely with your insurers, tell them all the facts and your concerns and very clearly let them know that you want them to defend this claim.
If they insist on paying up you always have the option of taking it on yourself but then lose the insurance cover for this incident. Be fully aware of the maximum downside of this action.
Is it definitely your wood? Was it definitely your wood that she used to climb on the wall? Was your security reasonable? Whose wall is it?
All questions you need to be answering in preparing your defence.
Good luck in this one.
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Posted By Shaun Brennan
Are`nt we all missing the point here, or is it me(copyright Terry Wogan), (I think) how the hell did this young girl get up on to the 2mtr high wall in the first place. Was this on a site or at the side of the road.
1) on a site they would have had to have walked on to site, which means that you had not secured your site securely enough!!
2) on the pavement you should have coned of the area and diverted the pedestrian access.
so yes in some ways going off the evidence you have given you could be liable
Bugsy
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Posted By Bryan Nott
It seems to me that if your only connection with the accident is the wood which came from your site and the wall has nothing to do with you then your insurer ought to be able to mount a good defence to the claim.
The Claimant would have to show that you were negligent in allowing the wood to be removed from your site or not tidying it away and I don't think that would be at all easy.
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