Accidents in Cafes & Restaurants Claims

We don’t think of cafes and restaurants as risky places to visit because, generally, they aren’t. However, you may take a different view if you arrive at this page because you’ve already suffered an injury in a café or restaurant accident and want to know whether you can claim compensation!!

Whether you are here to find details of a personal injury solicitor who can help you make a restaurant accident claim or want to learn more about the various types of restaurant or café accident claims, you are in the right place.

Mooneerams – ‘The Personal Injury Solicitors’ are experts in all personal injury compensation claims, particularly road traffic accident claims, accident at work claims and accidents in public places.

Accidents in cafes and restaurants involving customers are said to be accidents in public places. Most cafes and restaurants are privately owned but are open to the general public.

Café and restaurant owners owe their customers a duty of care

The owners of cafés or restaurants depend on people coming to their venues to eat, drink and enjoy the experience enough to want to return. However, the restaurant management’s starting point is to ensure their customers come to no harm whilst on their premises.

In legal terms, the owners or occupiers of a cafe or restaurant owe all lawful visitors to their establishment a duty of care. This duty comes from the Occupiers Liability Act 1957.

The duty of care covers customers coming to eat or drink at the café or restaurant and anyone with a right to be at the venue (such as utility workers, members of the emergency services and others who may occasionally have reason to be there to carry out their work duties).

In a café or restaurant setting, the owners and management of the business can go a long way to making sure they do all they reasonably can to keep visitors safe by;

Carrying out a thorough risk assessment of the venue, identifying potential problems, and then taking action to remove or manage the hazard.
Ensure their employees receive sufficient suitable training to carry out their duties effectively and safely.
Ensuring spillages of food and drink are cleaned up promptly.
Keeping aisles and passageways free from tripping hazards.
Maintaining restaurant furniture and repairing or replacing damaged or worn items.
If the restaurant or café has a car park, checking the lighting is adequate and that the parking area is free of potholes and other trip or fall hazards.

When can I claim compensation for a restaurant injury?

If the owners or management of a restaurant or café:

Are negligent and in breach of their duty of care to you whilst you are a visitor to their premises,
the consequence of their negligence is an accident you become involved in, and
you suffer injury as a direct result of your involvement in the accident

You may be entitled to make a personal injury claim on a No Win No fee basis against the café or restaurant owners, a claim that, if successful, will result in a compensation payout to you from the public liability insurers of the restaurant or café.

Even if you get injured due to an accident in a restaurant or café, you still have to provide evidence of the injury and, most importantly, prove that the accident was the owners’ fault.

It’s worth pointing out here, too, that when we talk about an accident caused by the restaurant owners or management, we do not necessarily mean that an individual owner or manager was responsible for the accident.

Many café and restaurant accidents happen due to something a member or members of staff did or did not do. For example, if a waiter accidentally spills coffee down your back whilst serving you at a table, you would claim against the restaurant or café as a company, not against the waiter.

An employer is responsible for the careless actions of staff members as long as those actions took place during their employment. Personal injury lawyers call this ‘vicarious liability’.

Call Mooneerams, the Personal Injury Solicitors, now on 029 2048 3615 to find out if you have reasonable prospects of making a claim.

What are the most common types of café and restaurant accidents?

Many accidents in cafes or restaurants result from the failure of management to take reasonable precautions to prevent incidents that result in injuries to their customers.

Here are some of the more frequent types of café and restaurant accidents:

1. Slipping accidents

These types of accidents are the most common in public places such as cafes and restaurants. However, during a busy day in eating and drinking establishments, there’s always a risk of food or beverages falling onto the floor, putting customers and other visitors at risk of slipping on them if they are not quickly cleaned up or flagged and sectioned off with cones or signage.

2. Trips and fall accidents

Items cluttering gangways or walkways in cafes and restaurants pose a danger to visitors. Other customers may leave shopping bags or boxes on the floor while sitting at a table in the café or restaurant, or electric cables may have been left strewn across walkways by workers or employees of the cafe.

3. Falling over poorly fitted or worn carpet or floor tiles.

Some restaurant and café accidents are caused by poor floor conditions inside and outside the building. Tripping over worn carpet curled up at the edges or on broken floor tiles can cause nasty falls to unsuspecting visitors.

4. Accidents in Car Parks

Many restaurants have car parks for their patrons. The risk to visitors from tripping and falling due to poorly maintained floors of restaurant car parks can be significant, especially if the lighting in the car park is also poor.

5. Inadequate lighting

Poor lighting on walkways, stairs, and the outside areas of cafes and restaurants can lead to trips and falls due to customers being unable to see where they are going and any hazards they may be required to negotiate.

6. Injuries caused by faulty furniture

Café and restaurant furniture gets plenty of use, so it is likely to wear down much more quickly than the furniture we use at home. For example, if not regularly checked for faults, chairs are prone to collapsing when sat on. Equally, serious back injuries may result from an unexpected fall from a chair. If the furniture is regularly checked for wear and tear, faults will be identified, and worn or broken items can be replaced.

7. Burns and scalding accidents in cafes and restaurants

One of our worst nightmares in a café is the prospect of accidentally having a hot drink poured over us by a staff member who was perhaps not concentrating fully on the job they were doing.

8. Food poisoning claims

You may eat food in a café or restaurant that makes you ill. Should this happen to you, you may be able to bring a food poisoning claim against the establishment responsible if you can prove the food you ate there caused the illness. We have a webpage dedicated to food poisoning claims, and you can find it by clicking the link here.

What types of injuries are caused by café and restaurant accidents?

How do I start the claims process for a café or restaurant injury claim?

Before anything else, the first thing you must do is get treatment for your injuries. You may need to go to A&E immediately, depending on the type and severity of your injuries. If not, get an appointment with your GP for treatment and advice from your doctor as soon as possible.
On the day of the accident or soon afterwards, make sure you report the accident to a staff member at the place where the accident happened.
Try and take some photos of where the accident took place. Get pictures of the defect or any other cause of the accident.
Take down the names, addresses and phone details of anyone who witnessed the accident.
Ask if there are CCTV cameras in the place where the accident happened. If so, ask for the footage to be retained and a copy sent to you or your solicitor.

What should I do next?

Contact an experienced personal injury solicitor with expertise in claims for accidents in public places.

Mooneerams – the Personal Injury Solicitors have been helping injured victims of accidents caused by others claim compensation for personal injury damages and other losses for over twenty years.

Mooneerams only act for the injured victims of accidents, never for insurance companies. We handle most café and restaurant accidents using No Win No Fee arrangements.

Call Mooneerams now on 029 2048 3615 for a free and confidential chat about your prospects of bringing a successful injury claim. Alternatively, you can contact us via our online form on this page or here.

The amount of compensation we recover for clients who have asked us to help them pursue café and restaurant accident claims varies in each case, depending on the type and severity of the injury sustained.

You can find a rough guide to the compensation awarded for different injuries sustained in accidents by visiting our Compensation Calculator page (for guidance only).

Remember to start a café or restaurant claim within three years of the date of the accident. There are exceptions to the three-year rule for children under eighteen and persons who lack capacity. To find out more, visit our Accident Advice Centre.

Alex Booth

Legal Assistant