23 December 2021

Public liability claims cover a wide range of incidents that can happen in both public and private areas, they may include things like injuries due to animal attacks, slips and falls on business premises, injuries in rental properties or illness due to faulty products.

Public liability claims cover a wide range of incidents that can happen in both public and private areas, they may include things like injuries due to animal attacks, slips and falls on business premises, injuries in rental properties or illness due to faulty products.

Public liability claims are intended to support an individual that has suffered physical or psychological injury due to the negligence of someone that has a duty of care to them in particular circumstances. As a general rule, public liability claims cover claims for injury or damage that do not include motor vehicle accidents, medical negligence and workers compensation.

Are you eligible for a public liability claim?

A number of circumstances need to be present in order to make an individual eligible for claiming public liability. In order to prove your eligibility you must:

  • You must show that someone had a duty of care to you when you suffered your injury. In most public places such as shopping centres or business premises, the owners or occupiers of the space have a duty of care to create a safe environment for the people that are using it. Therefore, if you sustained your injury within a public place it should be fairly easy to identify who potentially had a duty of care to you within that environment.
     
  • The accident must have been caused by the negligence of the person responsible. This is the most important part of this claim. You must be able to prove that the injury was caused due to the action or inaction of the person with a duty of care. This might be something like not repairing broken fixtures, not providing sufficient lighting or not flagging hazardous areas, which then resulted in your injury.
     
  • You must show that you experienced loss as a result of the injury. A simple bruise is often not enough, you must prove that the injury caused significant loss financially or to the quality of your life in order to be eligible for a public liability claim.

If you can fulfil these criteria then you are likely eligible to make a public liability claim for compensation. However, there are certain factors that can diminish the likelihood of your success or reduce the amount of compensation you receive.

Factors that might limit your claim

  • You were intoxicated by drugs or alcohol when the accident occurred or you were partly at fault for the accident which caused the injury.
  • You did not take the precautions that a reasonable person would have taken in those circumstances which led to the accident. This might be something like using your phone at the time which led to you tripping over an obvious obstacle.
  • There was not enough time for the person with a duty of care to take the steps to ensure the safety of the people in their care. This might be something like a person slipped on water that was spilled only moments before, not giving the individuals with a duty of care enough time to clean up the mess.
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