By Chris Carter, Managing Solicitor · Carter & Carter Solicitors · March 2026

He knew he shouldn’t have rushed it. The floor had been wet for a while and he’d walked past it twice without saying anything. On the third pass, carrying a stack of boxes, he slipped and went down hard. Fractured wrist. Three months off work. And from the moment it happened, he told himself the same thing: it was my fault. I should have reported it. I should have gone the long way round. I won’t bother calling anyone.

What he didn’t know was that the floor had been like that for two hours. That two other members of staff had reported it. That the company had a cleaning protocol that hadn’t been followed. That the risk assessment made no mention of wet floor procedures at all.

His employer was at fault. So was he — to a degree. But the law has a specific framework for exactly this situation. And it almost certainly entitled him to claim.

What does the law actually do when both sides are at fault?

The Law Reform (Contributory Negligence) Act 1945 governs this situation. Where a court finds that the claimant contributed to their own injury through their own negligence, it does not dismiss the claim — it reduces the damages by the proportion the claimant was found to be responsible.

So if you are found to be 25% responsible for your accident and your employer is found to be 75% responsible, you recover 75% of your full compensation. A claim worth £20,000 becomes a claim worth £15,000. The employer’s failure — to maintain the floor, to train the staff, to carry out a risk assessment — doesn’t disappear because you also made a mistake. It is weighed separately, and the two are balanced against each other.

The threshold for a claim to succeed is that the employer must bear some of the fault. If the evidence shows they do — and in most workplace accidents it does — then the question is not whether you have a claim but how much it is worth.

Why do so many injured workers talk themselves out of claiming?

The most common reason is a perfectly natural instinct towards fairness. If you feel that you made a mistake, pursuing a claim feels wrong — as if you’re trying to shift blame that is rightfully yours onto someone else. That instinct is understandable. But it tends to lead people to assume the law works the same way their conscience does. It doesn’t.

The legal question is not “who made a mistake?” It is “did your employer fulfil their duty of care under the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974?” If your employer failed to carry out a suitable risk assessment, failed to maintain equipment, failed to provide adequate training, or failed to implement safe systems of work — any of those failures may give rise to a claim, regardless of whether you were also careless.

The second reason people walk away is that they assume the employer will use their mistake against them. They will — but only to the extent the law allows. An employer’s insurer will always try to argue contributory negligence to reduce what they pay out. That is a standard part of the process, and it is something a specialist solicitor anticipates and manages. The argument that you were partly at fault is not fatal to a claim. It is a negotiating position.

What kinds of mistakes do courts consider contributory negligence?

Not wearing PPE that was provided and available — this is one of the most common findings. If your employer issued gloves, goggles, or other protective equipment and you chose not to wear them, a court may find that you contributed to the severity of your injury. This is not the same as saying the employer was not at fault. If the risk assessment was inadequate or the equipment was defective or ill-fitting, the employer’s failure still stands alongside yours.

Ignoring a known hazard — as in the opening example, where the worker had seen the wet floor and continued anyway. Courts will weigh how obvious the risk was, whether signs were displayed, and whether you had any realistic option to avoid it. A worker who has no choice but to pass through an area because there is no other route is in a very different position from one who had a safe alternative.

Rushing or taking shortcuts — particularly under time pressure. Courts take account of the environment in which you were operating. If you were rushing because your employer had set unrealistic targets, under-staffed the shift, or created a culture where reporting hazards was discouraged, your decision to rush looks very different from a decision made with full information and no pressure.

Does it matter if I didn’t report the accident at the time?

Late reporting weakens a claim, but it doesn’t end it. The most important evidence in a workplace accident claim is usually the accident book entry, medical records from the day or days after the injury, and witness accounts from colleagues who saw the conditions. If none of that exists because you didn’t report it, your claim becomes harder — but not impossible.

What you can still gather is your own account of what happened, medical records showing the injury and its timing, photographs if the hazard is still present, and statements from any colleagues who witnessed either the accident or the conditions that caused it. Your employer is required to hold CCTV footage for a period after an incident if they know one occurred — which means acting quickly is important.

Under the Limitation Act 1980, you have three years from the date of your accident to bring a claim. The advice is always to act sooner rather than later — evidence is easier to obtain and witnesses are easier to contact when the incident is recent.

What should I do if I think I was partly at fault?

Call a specialist solicitor and tell them the full picture — including the parts where you think you were at fault. A good solicitor needs to know the whole story, not the version you’ve polished to sound better. The more honest the account, the more accurately they can assess what the claim is worth and whether contributory negligence is likely to be raised.

Gather whatever evidence you can. The accident book entry if one was made. Photographs of the hazard. Contact details for any witnesses. Medical records showing the injury and when treatment was sought. Any written risk assessments or health and safety documentation your employer provided — or failed to provide.

And don’t assume the answer before you’ve asked the question. The workers who are most likely to miss out on compensation they’re entitled to are the ones who decide for themselves that their case isn’t worth pursuing. That decision belongs to a specialist solicitor — not to you, and certainly not to your employer.