Highlights:
- Active elderly man wins damages as he is unlikely to recover his quality of life fully.
- Off-duty nurse provides an important eyewitness account of the incident.
- Supermarkets are obliged to uphold cleaning and maintenance procedures.
Summary:
An elderly man shopping in his regular supermarket slips on a spillage of dry pasta and liquid.
Case Details:
Carbone Lawyers’ client (the Plaintiff) in this case is a 76-year-old gentleman. Before the accident, he was a fit and healthy man who regularly rode his bicycle, walked his dog on the beach and played with his grandchildren.
While shopping in his local supermarket, he failed to see some dried pasta and liquid that had spilled in one of the aisles. He slipped and fell, breaking his left leg. There were complications following the surgery, and the gentleman suffered from deep vein thrombosis and a shortened left leg which required the man to wear orthotics for the rest of his life.
Crucial to achieving a settlement was the account of a witness who was an off-duty nurse. Had the matter gone to trial, she was prepared to testify that she saw the spilled pasta and liquid in the supermarket aisle and that the staff failed to come to the plaintiff’s aid after he fell.
Carbone Lawyers was also able to show that the supermarket’s cleaning system was either inadequate or not being enforced by management.
Outcome:
The matter was settled out of court with the plaintiff awarded a substantial amount of money for pain and suffering.