Graeme Garrett: 'When people slip they tend to avoid injury... I doubt we will see an explosion of cases'

THESE cases are not uncommon. Generally, to have any prospect of succeeding, the injured party has to be able to show that the pub or club did not have a proper system for cleaning up spillages, or was not following them at that particular time.

If someone slips on a wet dancefloor, where drink has been spilled just minutes before, the club would not be liable as it would not have had the chance to notice it and clear it up. However, where broken glass or drink has been left for a while you could argue that, if there was a system, it had broken down.

If you can show they have not enforced their own rules, that's a good start. It's not strict liability, you've got to show negligence - that whatever they had slipped on had been there for a period of time.

In a very busy club you might have someone doing continuous inspections.

If they saw drink being spilled, and took steps to have it cleaned up as soon as possible, that's fine. It relies entirely on the premises doing what's reasonable.

The insurers always claim the clubs have systems in place. But if you see drink that was spilled 20 or 30 minutes earlier, that does not square with them having a continuous inspection programme.

Nowadays, people have a pretty good idea of whether it was an accident or whether it could have been avoided.

This woman appears to have suffered a nasty injury. I suspect that when people slip they generally avoid injury.

There's no compensation unless you can show some loss.

The 28,000 figure in this case would have been based on evidence taken by both sides. The insurers would not have accepted if they did not think it was worth at least 28,000.

I don't think we will see an explosion of these types of cases. They are very fact-sensitive and obviously because people are drunk the facts are confused. They do not know how long the drink has been lying for, or in many cases even what it was they slipped on.

• Graeme Garrett is a partner with Digby Brown lawyers.