Client awarded £3,000.00 after ice skating accident

In January 2015 Miss R, a student, went to Oxford Ice Rink and hired a pair of ice skating boots from the management.

She noted that the boots were not properly laced but she decided nevertheless to make the best of a bad job and put on the boots and went skating on the ice rink.

After a few minutes of skating she suddenly lost her balance and fell, sustaining an ankle injury.

A member of staff assisted her off the ice rink and an ambulance was called and she was taken to the local hospital where it was diagnosed that she had sustained a displaced spiral fracture in the right ankle.

We contacted the insurers for the owners of the ice rink and submitted a claim on her behalf.

Liability was denied on the basis that whilst they accepted that the boots had not been properly laced, they had a constant supply of laces on site and that our client should have immediately brought to the attention of the person in charge of boot hire the problem with the lacing and it would have been replaced.

Many solicitors would have abandoned the claim at the juncture but instead we argued that they should have checked the boots before issue and that they effectively admitted that the boots were defective.

In those circumstances, there was a clear breach of duty and we suggested a compromise of the claim because it was clear that our client should have mentioned the problem to the staff.

After further discussion the claim was settled on a fifty-fifty basis and, after submitting our medical report, the insurers offered £1,281.67.

Having reviewed similar decisions we rejected that offer and went back with a figure of £3,000, being fifty per cent of the £6,000 which our client would have been entitled to receive had she not have contributed to the accident by failing to take sufficient care for her own safety.

After further negotiation the insurers accepted that sum and made the requisite payment to the client.