A woman who slipped on ice as she was walking across the car park at her place of work has won £9,500 in compensation.

The healthcare worker was returning to her car when the accident happened. The weather had been cold and a lot of snow had fallen in the weeks prior to the accident, but the car park had not been gritted. Although she was wearing shoes suitable for the icy conditions, the woman slipped and fell. She landed heavily on her arm, injuring her elbow and shoulder.

The injury required stitches and left the woman with restricted movement in her shoulder. She was unable to drive for some weeks, and it was several months before she was able to return to work. She required physiotherapy and needed help from her family with day-to-day tasks.

It emerged that there had been two similar accidents in the car park in the week before the woman’s fall. However, no action had been taken to prevent further incidents.

The woman brought a claim for compensation. Her employer initially denied liability for her accident, claiming that she should have used another exit, although it was established that the exit she had used was often used by other staff. After an initial offer of compensation was rejected as being too low, her claim was settled for £9,500.

Whilst the law does recognise that it is not always reasonably practicable for the owners of premises to eliminate transient risks, the fact that there had been two previous accidents owing to the icy conditions, without any preventative action being taken, demonstrated that in this case the accident was foreseeable.