I am seeking advice re. an accident I had on Monday. I had a dental appointment for the removal of a wisdom tooth. On the way in to the surgery, I tripped on a hole in the tarmac of their car park and fell flat on my face resulting in a broken nose as well as aches and pains everywhere. Several people have urged me to make a claim against the dentists.
Does anybody have experience of making similar claims? I don’t want to get embroiled in a long and stressful legal battle. Should I suck it up, or try to get some compensation? I have an Accidents de la Vie insurance policy but no idea how it works!
I’m very lucky that at coming up to 80 years old I must have strong bones, because despite crashing down it is only my nose that was broken. If I was a frail old person, it could have been far worse.
I have no personal experience but my understanding is that the justice system for civil claims is slow and expensive, with no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow so it would depend on what you want to achieve as to whether it’s worthwhile.
Do you have protection juridique with your house insurance? if so ask them? It might be that a stiff letter to the dentist will work and you will be invited to make a claim on their insurance. Worth a phone call to find out?
Your own accident de vie contract is more for major stuff that stops you working and so on, but there should be something for aesthetic damage. Again have a look at your policy - if you see that is. Your photo looks horrid!
So sorry to hear that, Suke, but I agree with Jane and would notify my insurance straight away and let them take it from there. They will know what is possible and desirable.
It’s a bit of bruising, it will be gone in a couple of weeks, hopefully not too painful. Why do you and others, feel the need to blame someone else for your carelessness? I assume you aren’t blind? Perhaps you will watch where you are going in future?
That is rather harsh. It may be that in this instance the accident was not too serious, but the “carelessness” here is on the part of the dental practice in not properly maintaining the surface of their car park.
Of course we should all look where we are going, but accidents do happen and there is a duty of care for businesses (and home owners) to make sure that their premises are not a danger to visitors. At this time of year it can easily be dark and/or raining and the pothole might be impossible to see.
Next time someone might hit their head in such a way to cause concussion or a more severe head injury.
At the very least they need notifying about the pothole. Whether SuKe seeks compensation is up to her, but she is not at fault here.
Just in case, can you secure some documentation of your injuries, the location eg photos at the time, of the car park or as soon as light enough to photograph, documentation of pompiers coming to location to assist and timing if they did, confirmation of medical treatment with date and time, etc.
Try not to do it again soon as you don’t want anyone to say lady’s own fault and she keeps doing it, which IMO women and older people still seem to be subject to prejudice about.
Nasty bruises but actually pleased for you as you were lucky. Could have been so much worse and still not your fault.
In the UK (thoigh IANAL and there are at least two on SF who would know rather than my guesstimate bletherings) I would expect a claim against whoever is resppnsible for the car park or its maintenance or whoever/whichever business is inviting consumers to use it or the local authority if a public parking space, and I’d expect them to pay any out of pocket costs you had, sadly I think there compensation would be token only for this injury as the scales are quite low in the UK too.
In France, who knows. If you’d been an employee lots of potential help I suspect but as a business owner or even, G*d forbid, as a consumer in France, my perception is “ Good luck with that “.
So very glad you look like there will be no lasting injury, Suke. Very relieved for you. As even with worse injury and not your fault, I suspect compensation answer would be the same. At least you are in France and excellent high quality immediate care would have been there for you ?
If @Motherrobyn is around perhaps she’ll tell us how this would all have gone down in the US
I don’t know how old you are @Nigel1 but hovering around and beyond 80 makes for a very clumsy time in my experience. In the circumstances I thought your comment was a bit harsh. Especially as there may be costs involved for treatment etc. rather than jumping on a band wagon to make money out of it.
You are assuming she was careless? By all accounts she was just walking across their car park.
So in your world people can cause harm to others without any redress? Perhaps faulty flooring at the top of a staircase causing a person to fall and break vertebrae is ok by you? If you invite the public onto your property then you are liable for their safety.
Whether the outcome is a bouquet of flowers to say sorry, or a hefty financial compensation is the issue to debate. Not whether one can ignore any responsibility.
@David_Spardo you don’t need to be around 80 to experience clumsiness. I was paralysed at the age of 45 through an infection and spinal cord compression, luckily many years later I was able to walk again with the aid of a couple of sticks. I have drop foot, one of the many resulting issues following the paralysis. I trip up many times, over rugs, door thresholds, pot holes and cracks on pavements, shoes and clothing on the floor, I’ve even fallen down a set of stairs. I’ve scalded myself, damaged my back, shoulder, legs and arms. I never once even thought about blaming anyone else, I might be unstable on my feet and they don’t work very well but I do have two perfectly good eyes, I need to use them a bit more. People need to take responsibility for our own actions, whatever our age. Let’s not embrace the horrendous American blame culture.
Yes we do. But that also includes businesses and public places.
Your attitude would give free licence to any business or public authority to ignore maintenance and obvious safety measures which would obviously have tragic consequences.
Kudos to you for your recovery and your self-help attitude, but “duty of care” works both ways.
Thank you Jane. I don’t have protection juridique. In any event I don’t plan to pursue a claim, it was a question I asked due to several people (French) saying that I should do so, and I had no idea if it was common practice or not.
Thank you for your thoughtful reply Nigel. It is always good to know the opinion of others.
Actually a broken nose is extremely painful, but I am very lucky. Somebody else falling due to the same hole could have been very badly injured. Tarmac doesn’t make a soft landing!
It was very kind of you to take the trouble of offering your advice. I and ‘the others’ must learn to be less careless.
Thank you Chris. I reported the hole to the dentist, and they were able to see the result of my fall as there was blood streaming out of my face. They told me to wipe my face in the rest room. I think they might have been concerned that other patients arriving might think it was a dental procedure that had caused the damage! They did not seem at all concerned about the hole in the tarmac.
