How Much Compensation For Slip, Trip And Fall Claims?

The Health and Safety Executive, the regulatory body for governing health and safety at work, reported that between 2023 and 2024,  out of 604,000 non-fatal workplace accidents, 31% of these were slips, trips and falls.

These types of accidents account for over a third of all reported accidents at work, highlighting how common these accidents are. We are here to help if you have had a slip trip, or fall, whether this be at work or in public. Our guide has been made to help those interested in making slip trip and fall claims.

We will discuss who is eligible to claim with Public Interest Lawyers and the average settlement amounts for certain injuries. We then swiftly move on to examples of how slip, trip, and fall claims arise, what evidence will be useful for your claim and the time limits to start a claim.

Read on to learn more about slip, trip, and fall claims or you can get in touch with a member of the advisory team now. A friendly advisor can assess whether you have good grounds to start a personal injury compensation claim and connect you to one of the solicitors from our panel if you do.

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Jump To A Section 

  1. Can I Claim For A Slip, Trip Or Fall?
  2. The Average Slip And Fall Settlement Amounts
  3. How Is My Slip Trip And Fall Compensation Calculated?
  4. How Can Slip And Fall Accidents Happen?
  5. What Evidence Do I Need To Prove My Slip, Trip Or Fall?
  6. Is There A Time Limit For Slip Trip And Fall Claims?
  7. How Can Public Interest Lawyers Help Me?
  8. Learn More

Can I Claim For A Slip, Trip Or Fall?

For you to be able to start a slip trip, and fall claim, we must establish that negligence has occurred. To do this, we must be able to prove three factors:

  1. Someone owed you a duty of care
  2. The person who owed you this duty of care breached it
  3. The breach caused your accident and injuries

Negligence forms the basis of all personal injury claims, as it helps to demonstrate how the actions or inactions of another party caused your injuries. It helps to give a step-by-step explanation of your accident and is the foundation of your claim.

If you are wondering whether you can claim on behalf of someone else in slip, trip, and fall claims, in two circumstances, this is possible.

  1. If the claimant is under 18 at the time of their accident. Minors cannot make a claim on their own behalf.
  2. If the claimant lacks the capacity to claim on their own behalf. This is someone known as a vulnerable adult.

This role is called a litigation friend, and if you apply or the courts appoint you as one, you have a few responsibilities. These are:

  • To act in the best interests of the claimant
  • Ensuring that the claimant understands the claims process
  • Communicating with the claimant’s solicitor

If you have any questions about your claim or would be interested in learning more about claiming on behalf of someone else, call us today.

A woman trips over a computer wire

 

The Average Slip And Fall Settlement Amounts

Your compensation amount for slip, trip, and fall claims can be based on a number of factors, such as:

  • The type of injuries you have suffered
  • The severity of your injuries
  • Your expected recovery period

Professionals, when calculating your compensation, can refer to previous similar cases as yours to get a better idea of your compensation amount.

They can also consider frameworks such as the Judicial College Guidelines (JCG). This is a document containing categories of injury types and compensation amounts. The table below shows suggestive figures of compensation for injuries that could be sustained in slip, trip, and fall claims.

Please note that the top figure has not been accessed from the JCG, and these are guideline figures only.

Injury Compensation Guideline
Multiple Severe Injuries + Special Damages (such as loss of earnings)Up to £1,000,000+
Very Severe Brain Damage £344,150 to £493,000
Moderately Severe Brain Damage £267,340 to £344,150
Severe (i) Back Injury £111,150 to £196,450
Severe (ii) Back Injury £90,510 to £107,910
Severe (i) Neck Injury In the region of £181,020
Severe Arm Injuries£117,360 to £159,770
Severe (ii) Very Serious Leg Injuries £66,920 to £109,290
Severe Shoulder Injury £23,430 to £58,610

How Is My Slip Trip And Fall Compensation Calculated?

When your compensation for slip, trip, and fall claims is being calculated, professionals will consider two types of compensation.  These are known as general and special damages.

General damages are a head of compensation for the pain, suffering and loss of amenity that your accident has caused. What this means is that if your injuries have meant you can no longer engage in sports or hobbies, then this will be taken into consideration.

Special damages, however, have a different purpose from your general damages. This type of compensation has the purpose of reimbursing you for financial losses incurred as a result of your injuries. This could be things like loss of earnings if you have been left unable to work. We will discuss evidence shortly and how you can prove financial losses.

To find out more about your compensation, contact us today to be connected with one of our friendly advisors.

How Can Slip And Fall Accidents Happen?

Below, we discuss common examples of how and where slip, trip, and fall claims can arise:

Accidents At Work

The Health and Safety Executive, which is the regulatory body for governing health and safety at work, reported that slips and trips are the single most common cause of major injuries in the workplace. They also found that slips, trips, and falls account for over a third of all reported major accidents.

Whilst at work, your employer owes you a duty to take reasonable and practicable steps to ensure you are safe. This can be found in the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974.

Your employer’s responsibility can include performing risk assessments and providing you with personal protective equipment where necessary.

An example of how a slip trip, and fall can occur at work:

  • Your employer left trailing wires hanging out of a storage cupboard. As you walk past the cupboard, your ankle gets caught and you slip, resulting in a broken wrist. Here, it is your employers’ responsibility to make sure that wires do not pose a trip hazard.

Public Liability Accidents

While in a public place, you are owed a duty of care by the occupier or person in control of the premises on which you have had an accident.

This is established in the Occupiers’ Liability 1957 Act, which states the duty of care owed to you is that the premises will be reasonably safe whilst you are a visitor. This includes general maintenance to the premises, such as repairing broken stair rungs.

An example of how a slip or trip can happen in a public place:

  • You are walking along a road when you trip on the corner of a broken paving stone. You then fall to the ground and end up with an ankle injury as a result. Here, it is your local council’s responsibility to make sure that regular maintenance is completed to prevent accidents.

Accidents On Private Property

As with public liability accidents, the occupier of the premises owes you a duty of care to ensure that visitors are kept reasonably safe whilst on their property.

An example of how you might have had an accident on private property could be:

  • You were attending a dentist appointment. The floor was wet from the cleaners’ mopping, and no clear signage was displayed. As you walk on the floor, you slip and land on your back. You suffer a back injury as a result.

A man has slipped on a wet floor and landed on his back.

What Evidence Do I Need To Prove My Slip, Trip Or Fall?

Evidence is really important in slip, trip, and fall claims, as it helps to strengthen your claim and can further demonstrate why someone else’s negligent actions caused your injuries.

Your evidence could be

  • CCTV footage of the accident, if it was caught on camera
  • Your medical records or your GP health record, to highlight the extent of your injuries
  • Contact details of potential witnesses, for professionals to get a witness statement from at a future stage
  • Pictures of the injuries

For you to be eligible to claim special damages in your compensation, you must be able to prove that your injuries caused financial losses. This could be evidence such as:

  • Payslips – to demonstrate loss of earnings
  • Travel receipts – to show travel expenses, from your home to the hospital, for example
  • Medical invoices – to outline medical costs as a result of your injuries

As part of the services offered by Public Interest Lawyers, a solicitor from our panel could help you obtain evidence to support your claim. We understand it may seem daunting to start slip, trip, and fall claims, and that’s why we’re here to help.

A man has tripped on stairs

Is There A Time Limit For Slip Trip And Fall Claims?

Yes, the time limit to start slip, trip, and fall claims generally is 3 years following the date of your injury. This is established by the Limitation Act 1980.

However, that said, there are two exceptions to this permitted time limit for parties who cannot start a claim themselves:

  1. If the claimant was under 18 at the time
  2. The claimant lacks the capacity to claim on their own behalf

As discussed earlier, a litigation friend can start a claim on behalf of these parties.

If you are wondering whether your potential claim would fall within the time limit, call us today, and our advisors will be happy to discuss this with you.

How Can Public Interest Lawyers Help Me?

The solicitors from our panel have decades of experience advocating on behalf of those who have valid slip, trip, and fall claims. By choosing to work with Public Interest Lawyers, you will be updated throughout the process and kept in the loop throughout the whole claim.

If you instruct a solicitor from our panel, they could help you in a number of ways. This could  be by:

  • Making sure you understand legal language and your claims process
  • Ensuring your claim is started within the time limit
  • Negotiate a settlement amount on your behalf

Our panel of solicitors work under a Conditional Fee Agreement, on a No Win No Fee basis.

This means that you would not be expected to pay for their legal services at the start or during your claims process.

Rather, a percentage would be taken from your compensation if you are successful. This fee is protected by the Conditional Fee Agreements Order 2013, which ensures that you keep the majority of your compensation.

If your claim were unsuccessful, you wouldn’t be required to pay for our panel’s legal services.

A personal injury solicitor is speaking with a client

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Thank you for reading our guide about slip, trip and fall claims. If you have any further questions, or if you would like to get a personal injury claim started, please get in touch.