my mates mrs fell down a manhole
 

dont laugh this is serious:) .

over the weekend my mate and his mrs went shopping at a local tesco store. the car park was reasonably dark and as they walked towards the store hand in hand his mrs suddenly went down an exposed manhole in the car park.

there was no signage or barriers up or anything, turns out the manhole thankfully was only about 4 or 5 feet deep. no broken legs but some very nasty cuts and swelling and it was about a foot deep in water so could be nasty.

a tesco employee managed to find a wheelchair and helped pull her out with my mate and take her into the store where they gave her some first aid.

turns out that there had been some work done on the manhole the day before but this had all been inspected and signed off, that and the security cards patrol every hour to check the car park is safe.

my question is what sort of compensation can you claim from this?. tescos have accepted its going to be a legal matter.

working in construction this would be a major incident if this happened on site and no doubt a hefty claim involved.

seen the photos and injuries and its nasty.

anyone know much about this?.

yes she is blonde before you say how did she miss the open manhole cover. i always look where i am going. they also had their young son with them.

Was she wearing her glasses/needs them ?

in her defence it was dark and their son was running around so probably trying to keep an eye on him.

either way it shouldnt have been left how it was.

Bet Pikey's have nicked the cover for scrap

im glad she wasn't too badly hurt, they will laugh about after she's all better, firstly insist on the cctv footage for 'you've been framed', then see a proper solicitor though, not an itv advert accident at work type one

not sure about compo :cuckoo:

this country is compo crazy :rolleyes:

the local water board were pissing about at my site last summer and one of them had messed on with a manhole cover that has nothing to do with the water system, i only found out when i was cutting the grass and all of a sudden was quite a bit shorter then i should be :lol:

the cover was put on wrong and it was hard to tell with the long grass!

..Cos iv been in similar postion ( movable fence left across a road)
..but the lack of glasses killed it

- Otherwise she deffinitely get somthing out of them , i hear theyre worth a bit

There definitely in breach of the H&SWA 1974 sections 3(1) & 3(3) :thumb:

If they did leave it, its negligence and should pay her some compensation, if not then debateable, i.e. if its been robbed.

But youre a Geordie; so it didnt hurt and you felt nowt! Soft Southern shandies would have had a claim in quick smart...

Some thieving scum has nicked a man hole cover and now this woman is asking about compensation because she fell down it?
Only in no win no fee Britain.

This happened to my mate at a Tesco petrol station. He is a fireman and turned out for an incident, got out of the tender and his leg went down a missing manhole cover. He had to have surgery on a snapped cruciate ligament and was off work for several months. Despite admitting liability, Tesco are being very awkward. For example, his surgeon has advised him to give up running, or risk long term problems, whilst their appointed 'expert' claims it is fine. It's pretty obvious why! I know who I would trust...

Good luck and, as suggested, get a decent lawyer.

Yup, sad!

this brings back memories :lol1:

a few years back i fell in a drain hole in broad daylight outside of a supermarket. the drain had no cover and one bollard had been placed over or near the hole. someone had moved the cone for some reason so i fell in it. i ended up shaving the skin off of my Achilles tendon so it was exposed, a very close call.


anyway, i sued and won damages :thumb:


the supermarket were happy to settle out of court after less than 6 months of negotiation so it is always worth taking things further

too right i would ask for compensation as well ,walking along in the dark and all of a sudden you fall 4 foot or whatever .cuts and bruises while in crappy water with rats swimming in it :norty: .

a nice couple of grand for my troubles ,you dont get if you dont ask .
suprised they didnt give her a £50 shopping voucher

tesco's land, it's up to tesco to make sure their land is not dangerous, it's up to them how they do this, and it's up to them to prove they have done this sufficiently... you are assuming that the manhole was 'nicked', isn't it more likely that it wasn't fitted securely or even at all? means as it was worked on the day before, perhaps the lid is in the hole, either way, tesco have a duty of care to ensure the safety of it's patrons. whether they have applied their duty of care sufficiently is up to a court to decide. Did the woman have a duty of care to herself, in fading light is it reasonable to expect to see a large hole in a footpath, of course not. if the woman was walking with her eyes closed, or walking backwards, then that is reckless, but to be walking normally and to become injured and damage clothing and incur costs due to hospitilisation because someone else was negligent demands some sort of compensation.............................still funny though.

Sod it, if anyone can afford to give someone compensation its Tesco, they'll own the world in a few years :lol1:

Good luck to her, Im not one for claiming compo on injuries but Id definately be persuing that one :thumb:

we all moan about britain being a joke but the compensation culture is one of the main things blighting this company. moan at the manager, get some free shopping make sure u pay attention next time and get on with life.

I would prefer it if she did not become a further Drain on the economy !!!:norty:

Personally I'd say it's down to the injury caused. If she's walking with a limp for a few days but then it heals OK, don't claim. If she ends up off work for more than a few days or needs surgery and/or physio or there's any possibility of long term damage then it's right to claim, IMHO.

I think she should come to a personal arrangement with the store, not take it through legal channels after all that would be the fairest solution, fair compensation for a minor incident but not to the extremes of court etc after all even with duty of care while on their grounds it is pretty impossible for them to escort every one off the property safely.

They could say that if she had been concentrating on walking not the child who was running loose at the time she would have seen it which then would create a thought about her own duty of care to her enviroment.

Eitherway she has to do what she feels best and live with that decision.

According to the op they had a signed off the works and they have a patrol to look after things.
I am only commenting on what the op has stated, if Tesco's are negligent then they should be punished however it looks, without having Tesco's side of the story, that someone else has tampered with it.
If some pikey has nicked a cover one minute and someone has fell down it the next why should the owner of the land pay for it.
Thanks for the negative feedbacks, playing devils advocate is unpopular it seems.

Free unlimited grocery shopping for the year :thumb:

i didn't neg you mate, i am not a paid up member so can't do that. nicked or not, court will decide if tesco has made proper attempts to protect people using their land.

Wasn't saying you ;) was just replying to your quote.

I think you should get compensation, they may have been negligent and who know the long term effects. I had an accident at work and cannot run, push shopping trolley and it has really impacted on my life and wish I'd pushed hard for compo as if I had some treatment paid for at the time I might be more mobile.

I think when you do not ask for compensation it allows people to continue to act in this possibly negligent manner


AllanB

Round my way it'd almost certainly be caravan dwelling folk that had half inched it .... doesn't matter if it was nicked or not though, Tesco's are still responsible for ensuring their property is safe for customers.

OP states they had patrolling guards and yet they failed to notice it .... the type of manhole covers used in car parks are generally s0ddin great heavy things that don't come out without a fight and a fair amount of noise - some even take two men to lift ..... yet no one noticed one being nicked? More like it was raining and the guards checked the car parks by using the cctv instead! ;) lol!

A 4 to 5 foot drop when unexpected will damn well hurt, particularly a hole in the deck that doesn't give you room to bend your knees to absorb the shock and at risk of getting flamed for this, particularly being a girl. Absolutely not intending to sound sexist with that (so apologies if i do!) and freely accept there's always exceptions but generally speaking, men have stronger muscle density in their legs so are more likely to better cope with that type of impact shock .... would still bl00dy hurt though! ..... just glad for their sake it wasn't their nipper that took the drop :O

If she'd fallen up a curb or something then i would've poked fun and said GTFO but in this case i can well believe she was and still is in quite some pain plus, it could've been a lot worse ..... reckon there's justified cause for compensation personally.

I inherited a similar, albeit industrial case several years ago.

Manhole cover was broken, someone had a put a cone on it, it was then moved by a tanker driver because the cone posed an obstruction (perceived safety hazard). Worker then stood on manhole and fell through.

He endured some nasty cuts and a sprained ankle.

6 months and 8k on compensation.

After Denmark, Britain has the lowest levels of compensation than any other developed country on the planet.

If it were me and I fell down an unopened man hole, then the least I would expect is 10k.:D