Julia v Safeway Stores

Name

Institution of Affiliation

ISSUE

The case at hand involves Julia, the Plaintiff and Safeway stores, the defendant. The issue, in this case, is should our client Julia sue Safeway stores for damages as a result of breach of duty of care after skidding on the wet floor at the stores leading to her sustenance of major injuries at the back?

RULE

The legal principle that is applicable in this case, is that of negligence. In this case, the plaintiff has to prove the following, and this is as per Caparo Industries plc v Dickman, in order to succeed.

The defendant (Safeway Stores) owed them a duty of care
The defendant (Safeway Stores) was in breach of that duty
The plaintiff (Julia) suffered damages as a result of the breach of duty
The damage was not too remote

APPLY

Duty of care

Applying the rule outlined above, the defendant (Safeway stores), owed duty of care to the plaintiff (Julia), their visiting customer. This is as stipulated in Donoghue v Stevenson, where Safeway stores owes a duty of care to all its clients where it can reasonably foresee that its actions might cause harm to them. Referring to the Caparo test of Duty of Care, it was reasonably foreseeable that washing the floor of the stores during operational hours may cause harm to the persons visiting the facility (Rogers v Whitaker). In addition, proximity is evident between action by Safeways and Julia, the visiting client (Bourhill v Young). It is just and reasonable for the defendant to be sued for negligence of duty of care as Safeway stores should not allow its clients to enter the store when the floors were slippery (Gala V Presto). Therefore, we can presume that Julia, a visiting client, got his back injured after slipping on the slippery floor at the Safeways store (Gala v Preston). According to the Caparo test, Safeways owes duty of care to Julia and should have taken precaution by only allowing clients into the stores when the floors are dry and non-slippery.

Breach of duty of care

The calculus of negligence can be used in analyzing whether there was breach of duty of care. The probability of harm by falling on the slippery floor is high, thus Safeways Stores should have taken more precaution beyond placing the warning signs (Miller v Jackson). The likelihood of getting hurt on falling on the slippery floor is also high, and this again suggests that Safeway should have taken more precaution beyond the warning signs (Paris v Stephney Borough Council). Referring to the last two principles, Safeways should have taken more precaution, which it partially did. The further precaution to be taken, in this case, is washing the stores during the non-operational hours, which is very practicable to do in terms of timings (Latimer V AEC). Therefore, there is an increased likelihood that Safeways breached their duty of care against Julia.

Damages

The main concern here is on the harm caused by the breach of duty of the defendant (Barnett v Chelsea Kensington Hospital). From the doctor’s reports, the cause of the back injury could be as a result of slipping on the floor.

Remoteness

A person who is reasonable enough would have foreseen that if a client walks on a wet floor, he may fall and get injured, therefore, chances of the back injury being attribute to the slipping are very high (The Wagon Mound No. 1). Therefore, the back injury on Julie was caused as a result of Safeways Stores breach of duty of care.

CONCLUSION

If Julie sues Safeways for negligently causing physical harm to her, she is likely to successfully prove the slipping on the floor as the cause.