How have the courts treated liability in cases involving slip and fall?

The defendant contends that if the plaintiff did fall as alleged, the fall was due to her own carelessness or negligence in that she was not paying adequate or reasonable attention to the condition of the aisle down which she was walking. As I have already explained, the plaintiff when walking down the aisle was endeavouring to locate the counter at which the goods she was searching for could be purchased. She was naturally, and justifiably, looking around the store and not at the floor and she had every right to expect that the aisle would be free from obstruction. Under the circumstances, the fact that she failed to see the trinket on which she stepped is no evidence of contributory negligence on her part. A similar point was considered in Stowell v. Railway Executive [1949] 2 KB 519, [1949] 2 All ER 193. There the plaintiff had gone to a railway terminus to help his daughter and her children off a train. In searching for them he slipped on an oily patch on the platform, which he had not seen, and fell, sustaining injury. The judgment of the court on this point is summarized in the headnote in the following terms: “Held: (i) Inasmuch as it was a convenience to their passengers, and as the plaintiff by assisting with the luggage of the persons whom he had come to meet, would help to clear the platform, the defendants had an interest in the plaintiff’s entering the station which was sufficient to make the plaintiff an invitee.

“Dictum of Denman, J., in Watkins v. G.W. Ry. (1877) 46 LT 193, applied. “(ii) The oily patch was an unusual danger, in the circumstances, because the plaintiff could not be expected to be looking on the ground at every step and he was entitled to expect that the platform would be free from obstruction. The plaintiff was taking reasonable care for his own protection, and the defendants were liable.”