Claiming for Injury - Whiplash

[Ch00]

I will keep details brief as I'm not sure on the route to be taken.

Long story short. We were staying at a well know budget chain hotel in Scotland where the Mrs took a tumble in the bath and had bruised her arm and hurt her neck and shoulder.

It was fully reported to the hotel manager (day staff didn't have any idea what to do) so have to wait a day for the manager to be on shift. She took photos of the bath and of the Mrs massive bruise and will complete a report for their H&S people to look into. She was asked if she used the hand rails which she did.

She also took notice of the notice to be careful when exiting the bath.

I suspect and pointed out to the manager that the bath grips on the bottom of the bath had worn away in the middle where your feet go and provided no grip hence the fall.

Once home she went to A&E as she couldn't lie down in bed due to pain. They stated she had whiplash and to return if the pain worsen or she felt pins and needles in the hand. The hotel was updated with the level of injury.

Today she went back to A&E closer one this time and they did a full set of Xrays to confirm no broken collar bone or any other breaks. Doctors again confirmed whiplash have given her strong pain killers and things to do to help with the movement. She has also had to go sick from work as they see her as a liability and don't want here there.

I am awaiting the outcome of the investigation and will see what they are going to say about it but I feel that the injuries are quite serious to drop the matter.

Any org advice?

[Bibio]

you could try and ambulance chaser but i fear that you wont get far. from what you have described the hotel chain has adhered to all the health and safety rules. put it this way would you sue a ski slope for having too much snow and you broke your leg in a tumble due to the snow being too deep?

there is only so much that health and safety rules can provide, its up to the individual to keep themselves safe. upon inspection of the bath surface you could have asked the hotel management to change your room or provide other bathing facility's. if they failed to adhere to your request then they would be at fault.

i hope Mrs Ch00 recovers soon as there is nothing worse than a bad fall, i would say give her a hug from me but i fear it might hurt so a kiss will suffice :-)

GWS Mrs Ch00.

[Ch00]

Thanks for that Bibio.

I agree with you on points and don't really want to sue them as such but I feel its a significant injury that deserves some redress. To be honest a sorry and a refund would do it.

I will ask for that when they make contact.

[ethariel]

On the other hoof, does the hotel have a full set of records showing the periodic checking of the H&S steps they have taken to ensure the bath units in the hotel are up to specification and not worn or damaged?

If no records can be produced, are they just providing lip service to the brand's H&S policy but not enforcing it correctly.

H&S is a minefield especially as an approved code of practice is not law but you will be on the wrong end of a pointy stick if you don't adhere to it as a defense in the event something does go wrong.....

A decent anbulance chaser will probably get a result out of it, a few quid to you and a grand or 2 in their fees against the hotel chain which will in all probability settle out of court without admitting liability as the cost of taking it to court every time would be horrendous whether they win or lose.

Just my 2p

[TamSV]

Hopefully you'll get the apology you're looking for but don't be too surprised if you don't, or get one that's a bit mealy-mouthed. Businesses are afraid of being sued and many of them, and their customers, believe that an apology is an admission of guilt. Ironically, the lack of apology often leads customers to think their complaint isn't being taken seriously, which then becomes a reason to sue.

Ethariel is right that the potential success of any legal claim would, to a large extent, hinge on the quality of the hotel's practices and paperwork. The hotel sector in general isn't the best at this. Large businesses are often better at the box-ticking side of things but not always so good at the follow through - particularly where margins are thin.

If you're not happy with the response then only you can decide what should happen next. At the end of the day, they took your money and they owe you a duty of care. If they failed in that then you deserve some restitution. If you just consider it a pure accident then move on. Both are legitimate points of view IMHO.

[Amadeus]

Is this not similar to pothole issues - if someone has reported that there's a problem but the council do nothing about it then they're liable but if something happens without it being reported previously, they're not?
Playing devil's advocate (and maybe how the hotel chain would view the matter), if it was obvious that there was no grip on the bath, Mrs Ch00 shouldn't have used it and asked for a different room. If it wasn't obvious until after she'd slipped and you'd examined it, how would they notice?

In my eyes it looks like an accident. I can imagine that if that was me, I'd just put it down to experience but if it was my wife, I'd probably be a lot more angry about it.

Will be interesting to see the outcome, and even the views of more learned members.

GWS Mrs Ch00.

[ophic]

Playing devil's advocate (and maybe how the hotel chain would view the matter), if it was obvious that there was no grip on the bath, Mrs Ch00 shouldn't have used it and asked for a different room. If it wasn't obvious until after she'd slipped and you'd examined it, how would they notice?

But equally would Mrs Ch00 notice that the grip was worn? Should she really be expected to notice this? Is she even qualified to judge if a bath is slippy or not before it's wet? (She probably is now) Hotels should perform their own inspections and their customers should be able to use the facilities with the expectation that all reasonable precautions have been taken for their safety. It sounds like the hotel failed here. However if the hotel admits liability they would then be liable for the cost of Mrs Ch00's medical treatment, and the NHS would seek to reclaim this from them.

Councils and roads are a different matter as it's unreasonable to expect the council to inspect every square inch of every road in their area and still be cost effective.

I'm a bit divided on this issue. On the one hand I don't like ambulance chasers and I agree that, as long as she makes a full recovery, an apology and a refund is a very reasonable request. On the other hand, I hate sloppy work. The bath was dangerous because someone hasn't done their job properly.

[madcockney]

I am not a strong believer in ambulance chasing and as Bibio said we all have a responsibility for our own safety. However where something like this occurs which could go on for some time and even be long term then this may affect the finances of the injured party and those involved then this needs to be looked at slightly differently. When I was responsible for a company's insurance we were told by the insurers that even if we undertook every thing possible the injured party was still likely to have a winning claim as it was on our property. At a school one of the staff slipped on ice on the pavement from the car park to the school building. The path had been gritted, etc, but even so that member of staff won their claim. It is also up to the organisation, in this case a hotel, to ensure that everything is inspected and is up to a standard for the job involved. You also have to be careful with signs as they can be taken two ways. One is that they are there to assist you, the other is that it is recognition of an issue that should have been rectified. If we undertake a dangerous sport snowboarding, horse riding, pot holing, riding motorbikes, etc then the danger part goes with the territory, and I for one get annoyed with others trying to protect me from myself, but hotels!

[Spank86]

Is she even qualified to judge if a bath is slippy or not before it's wet?

I'm not sure it takes special training, I mean you do have baths in homes up there right?

[454697819]

Write to them, do everything in writing and give them deadlines (reasonable ones) for reply

it comes down to what is reasonably practicable -

They had fitted handles
they had fitted a notice
had they inspected the bath anti slip -? do they have records?

If your not interested in suing them per-say write in your letter what you want from them to conclude the issue - this gives you a base to elevate things should you not get the response your expecting.

Hope she heals quick.

Regards

Alex

[ophic]

I'm not sure it takes special training, I mean you do have baths in homes up there right?
Nice smooth ones that look slippery but aren't. Unless I have special non-slip feet.

Up where? :confused:

[Spank86]

Nice smooth ones that look slippery but aren't. Unless I have special non-slip feet.

Up where? :confused:
I dunno, but when you live in Southampton "up there" is usually a safe bet :D

[Mr Speirs]

Considering not many baths in the UK have non slip grips in in the first place how much more do you think the hotel could have done?

Is it not more reasonable to think that your wife just had an accident despite the efforts of the hotel to make sure all guest were aware of the blinding obvious that a smooth surface is slippery when wet?

[600+]

Considering not many baths in the UK have non slip grips in in the first place how much more do you think the hotel could have done?

Is it not more reasonable to think that your wife just had an accident despite the efforts of the hotel to make sure all guest were aware of the blinding obvious that a smooth surface is slippery when wet?

Don't be daft! This is compensation Britain

[Ch00]

I would think my wife excised great care, The bath had been drained. There was no suds left and was using the hand rails on the bath and wall but still she fell.

Picture of said bath....

http://i227.photobucket.com/albums/dd86/Ch00ie/DSC_5713.jpg (http://s227.photobucket.com/user/Ch00ie/media/DSC_5713.jpg.html)

[Ch00]

Considering not many baths in the UK have non slip grips in in the first place how much more do you think the hotel could have done?


Maintained the grips or supplied bath mats like the old days.

[Heorot]

Madcockney.

"At a school one of the staff slipped on ice on the pavement from the car park to the school building. The path had been gritted, etc, but even so that member of staff won their claim."

She won because she was a member of staff. It's likely that a member of the public would not have won. That's because staff can claim under the Employee Liability law which states that the employer has an absolute responsibility for the safety of their staff and there is no requirement for negligence to be proved. A member of the public would have to prove negligence, which in the case you describe, is absent. The school did all that was necessary to avoid liability.

[littleoldman2]

The above is why every school in Northumberland shuts when it snows.
Absolute stupidity

[Dave20046]

I hate to say it , but it looks like the kind of bath that would be slippery when wet...
Maintained the grips or supplied bath mats like the old days.
My bath (and shower, it's an all in one unit) has neither grip nor bath matt. It's used daily by me and I'd estimate weekly by my housemate - neither of us have ever slipped.

Said house mate is a particularly clumsy bloke - he once slipped on water leaked from a hotel aircon and fell through the rickety single glazed window requiring stitches and mass blood clean up. 1) he received no compo for that (drunk) 2)he's still not managed to have an accident here.

[Biker Biggles]

Madcockney.

"At a school one of the staff slipped on ice on the pavement from the car park to the school building. The path had been gritted, etc, but even so that member of staff won their claim."

She won because she was a member of staff. It's likely that a member of the public would not have won. That's because staff can claim under the Employee Liability law which states that the employer has an absolute responsibility for the safety of their staff and there is no requirement for negligence to be proved. A member of the public would have to prove negligence, which in the case you describe, is absent. The school did all that was necessary to avoid liability.

Are you sure?

[Heorot]

Yes. If someone is an employee, they use the Employee Liability Act (EL) to claim instead of a Public Liability (PL) claim which is what a non-staff person would use to claim. It's almost impossible to turn down a claim by an employee if the incident happened while at work. About the only reason you can turn down an EL claim is if it can be demonstrated that the incident was entirely the claimants fault and that all risk assessments and H & S requirements had been done, or where there were no grounds for making a claim. Where I worked, 82% of PL claims were refused but the figure for EL claims was under 60%, and usually those refusals were because the EL claims were spurious.

[Red ones]

Employee Liability law ... states that the employer has an absolute responsibility for the safety of their staff and there is no requirement for negligence to be proved. A member of the public would have to prove negligence, which in the case you describe, is absent. The school did all that was necessary to avoid liability.

"It is an employer's duty to protect the health, safety and welfare of their employees and other people who might be affected by their business. Employers must do whatever is reasonably practicable to achieve this."

This is not absolute, the key wording being "whatever is reasonably practicable." Absolute is used in H&S wording to mean something quite different, something that MUST be done. In the the case of slippery footpath to work, the employer is responsible for ensuring safe access to the place of work so far as reasonably practicable. It is for the employer to assess what is reasonably practicable. This duty is not only on the employer to employees, but also to others affected by their actions or inactions.

Logically, PL claims will be less likely to succeed than EL claims. Employees are more likely to highlight potential problems that members of the public, and if H&S practices are applied then employees should be consulted on making the workplace safer. On the other hand, members of the public are not routinely consulted and, if we are cynical, are more likely to make a spurious or even fabricated claims as there is less to lose if the case is found unsuccessful.

[Heorot]

Red ones, I was looking at it from the perspective of an insurer as someone who worked on both the admin and claims handling side in an insurance environment for a local authority for 10 years. We were a fully staffed insurance department doing all the work in house including employing our own in-house solicitor. We were considered above average for the insurance industry.

What I described is how it works in practice, rather than what the law and theory is.

[Ch00]

Update for all.....

The whiplash has gone which is the most important thing as has the brusing.

The hotel has investigated and found no fault to the bath and will be making no repairs.

They gave her £30 off her next stay. When she complained again she got a £30 refund off the bill.

The Mrs is happy to leave it there.

Thanks for the comments and advice.

[Dave20046]

Update for all.....

The whiplash has gone which is the most important thing as has the brusing.

The hotel has investigated and found no fault to the bath and will be making no repairs.

They gave her £30 off her next stay. When she complained again she got a £30 refund off the bill.

The Mrs is happy to leave it there.

Thanks for the comments and advice.
Glad she's feeling better ch00