A shopper from Peterborough has successfully sued Asda after injuring himself when he slipped on a grape while walking through their store.
Thomas Wardle suffered injuries after the incident occurred, and subsequently was awarded £10,500 compensation. Asda also incurred an additional £18,000 in legal fees. It is unknown what injuries Mr Wardle received as a result of the accident.
Asda’s Peterborough store has two similar cases to face from injured shoppers, and have denied that the store has cleanliness issues.
The judge in the case had taken a dim view due to the record keeping of cleanliness, criticizing them heavily in this regard.
In a statement the store said: “We have thorough processes in place to ensure our store floors are kept clean to prevent anyone from slipping or falling.
“We’re extremely sorry on this occasion we did not meet our own extremely high standards.”
The other cases include a person who sustained injury after slipping on food, and another on mayonnaise.
Due to the size of the payout received by Mr Wardle, David Heming, head of personal injury at a local solicitor firm believes that he must have incurred a soft tissue injury to his back.
He said: “There are guidelines on what to award in damages in cases like that. For instance, a fractured arm in a car crash through the fast track system would be £10,000 or under.”
He went on to say that compared to the USA, the UK did not have a compensation culture: “There have been a lot of academic studies and it shows in real terms there isn’t this compensation culture like in the USA.
“The research shows that there hasn’t been an increase in claims but people are more aware of their rights.
“People also don’t realise there is funding for this kind of claim.
“Quite often home insurance includes legal expenses for personal injury claims provided you satisfy the insurer’s rules.
“You also need to provide medical evidence to back up a claim in these types of incidents.”
