An appeal against a decision that a fall in a Waitrose car park in Ruislip was simply an accident for which Waitrose was not liable has failed in Kanwarjit Singh Juj v John Lewis Partnership plc [2022] EWHC 2418 (KB).
The appellant sought damages for personal injury arising from the fall in May 2015. He claimed that the respondent had breached its duty of care under the Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957, causing him to trip on a kerb next to a disabled parking bay in which his wife, a blue badge holder, had parked their car. The appellant suffered a fractured wrist and facial and brain injuries, with long-term consequences. The car park was owned by the London Borough of Hillingdon, which collected the revenue from the pay and display system, emptied bins and undertook periodic repairs. The car park displayed Waitrose branding and, while the respondent held keys to the car park, it had no licence or other legal interest in it. No claim was brought against Hillingdon.
At first instance, the judge in the Central London County Court decided that the defendant had sufficient control to be an occupier of the car park but that control was limited to dealing with immediate hazards, putting in place interim measures to deal with hazards and reporting matters to Hillingdon. It did not extend to painting the kerbs, putting up warning notices or making any long-term or structural changes. There was no trap and the kerb could be seen clearly, but the design of the bay, with the presence of the kerb to the left, was an unreasonable danger for the disabled, the class of visitors using that bay. There had been earlier incidents which Waitrose should have reported to Hillingdon before they did so, in 2016. However, Hillingdon ignored the respondent’s request to paint the kerbs and so it was unlikely that an earlier request would have produced a different result.
The appeal focused on the extent of the respondent’s duty under section 2(2) of the 1957 Act. The court upheld the finding that the respondent was an occupier of the car park for limited purposes – dealing with immediate hazards, putting in place interim measures to deal with hazards and reporting issues to Hillingdon – but decided that control had extended to putting up warning signage where necessary and reiterating reasonably frequently any concerns which Hillingdon had not attended to within a reasonable period.
However, all the features of the bay – its size and the presence of the kerb – were obvious, and so the respondent did not come under any duty either to warn visitors of the danger identified by the judge or to draw the danger to Hillingdon’s attention, despite earlier accidents in or around the bay. The degree of risk was insufficient to trigger the respondent’s duty of care under section 1 of the 1957 Act. Neither the danger identified by the judge nor the breach of any duty by the respondent caused the appellant’s accident. He had simply misjudged his step, as he might have done on any street kerb, in any location.
Louise Clark is a property law consultant and mediator
