£10,000 recovered for client who fell at local Bury retail park

Mrs S, a local client, was shopping at a Bury retail park when she tripped over an area of raised block paving and sustained a fractured shoulder. Mrs S contacted Aston Knight Solicitors and within a couple of weeks we had carried out a site inspection and took detailed photographs of the defect in question.

We submitted the claim to the site owners who denied liability on the basis that the defect did not create a foreseeable hazard to the public. We did not accept this assertion and the photographs taken by Aston Knight went someway to showing that the defect did present a dangerous tripping hazard to visitors to the site.

Mrs S suffered a fractured shoulder as a result of this fall, and we obtained a report from a reputable shoulder surgeon which set out the details of the injury and the impact upon Mrs S.

We issued Court proceedings against the site owner and they responded by reaffirming their denial of liability. Undeterred by this, we prepared the case for a final court hearing.

Our hard work and persistence paid off and, in the days before the final hearing, the Defendant finally agreed to engage in settlement negotiations. A settlement was reached in the sum of £10,000 which, in the circumstances, was an excellent outcome for our client.

Solicitor, Andrew Thompson, commented:

“This is a classic example of a Defendant refusing to accept any responsibility, despite the evidence being entirely to the contrary. They refused to engage in settlement negotiation right up until a week before the court hearing. Aston Knight did not waver in our belief that this accident was not the fault of our client, who was perfectly entitled to visit the local retail park and expect that the walkways would be free from dangerous trip hazards. Our perseverance paid off and we were delighted to reach a settlement prior to the court hearing taking place.”

Back to Recent Successes