A client asked if she could sue the supermarket when she slipped on a wet floor and injured herself.
Our case law has often dealt with so-called “slip and fall” or
“spillage” matters where an injured party sues the owner or tenant of premises for
monetary compensation for injuries suffered.
The following is the legal position:
· A spillage case typically occurs when a visitor to a mall, supermarket or other public place slips on a liquid lying on a floor. The fall causes the visitor to sustain injuries, which results in a claim for damages against the property owner or the management company managing the property or the cleaning company that cleans the property (or all three).
· As a general principle, the defendant supermarket owner owes a duty to persons entering its supermarket during trading hours to take reasonable steps to keep the floor in a condition that is reasonably safe for shoppers.
· A reasonable person in the position of a defendant supermarket owner should foresee and guard against the possibility of the plaintiff slipping and falling on a liquid on the supermarket floor, which causes the plaintiff to fall, injuring herself in the process.
· If a mall owner or the managing agent engages a competent cleaning company to ensure that the floors remain safe and have no means of knowing that the work of the independent cleaning company is defective, the owner or agent should not be held liable for the plaintiff’s injuries.
·
In
a twist, in the latest spillage case, in Holtzhausen
v Cenprop Real Estate (Pty) Ltd and Another [2021] 2 All SA 457
(WCC), the court had to decide on different facts where rainwater brought into
the mall by visitors on the day in question was not a “spillage”. Therefore
this was not a “spillage” case. The court did not have to pronounce on the
adequacy of the cleaning company’s cleaning system or the failure by the
cleaning company to mop up the water. The court held that the fault could only
lie with the owner and the manager of the mall (the two defendants in the
matter). The defendants had a legal duty to take reasonable steps to
ensure that the mall floors remained safe to users. They could have done this by
contracting the cleaning company to dry the sections of the floor that became
wet when it rained or to close the entrances exposed to the rain every time it
rained. As they didn’t take either step, the defendants were negligent and were liable
to the plaintiff for her damages.
As a precaution and to avoid any doubt, injured parties
should sue not only the party immediately responsible for the wrong (e.g. the
cleaning company) but also the owner or manager who may only have been indirectly
responsible for the wrong.
