By Chris Carter | March 2026

You walked into a supermarket. You weren’t rushing. You weren’t distracted. You were just shopping.

Then the floor gave way beneath you.

Maybe there was a spill nobody had cleared. Maybe condensation had dripped from a chiller cabinet. Maybe the floor had been mopped and left wet with nobody around to warn you. Whatever the cause, you went down hard – and now you’re wondering whether you have a claim.

The question most people ask is: “How do I prove the floor was wet?” That is the wrong question. And understanding why could make all the difference to your claim.

What does the law require a shop or supermarket to do?

The Occupiers’ Liability Act 1957 places a clear legal duty on anyone who occupies premises open to the public. That includes supermarkets, shops, shopping centres, cafes, restaurants, and any other indoor venue where the public is invited in.

The duty is to take reasonable care to keep the premises safe for visitors. Not a best practice. A legal obligation – backed by civil liability.

In practice that means active, documented, regular inspection and cleaning. Not a policy document sitting in a filing cabinet. Systems that are actually followed, recorded, and can be evidenced if something goes wrong.

When a store falls short of that standard and someone is injured, it is accountable. The question is how that accountability is established – and who carries the legal burden of proving it.

Who has to prove what when you slip on a wet floor?

This is the question that matters most – and the law answered it clearly in Ward v Tesco Stores Ltd [1976] 1 WLR 810.

The claimant slipped on yoghurt on the floor of a Tesco store and suffered injuries. Tesco argued she could not prove how long the yoghurt had been there, or that anyone from the store knew about it. The Court of Appeal disagreed.

The judgment established a principle that applies in every comparable case to this day. Once a claimant shows they slipped on a substance or hazard on the floor of a shop or supermarket, the burden of proof shifts to the defendant. It is then up to the store to demonstrate it had a reasonable and effective system of inspection and cleaning – and that the system was being followed at the time you fell.

You do not have to prove the hazard was there for a long time. You do not have to prove the store knew about it. You show you slipped on a hazard. They show what they were doing to prevent it.

What counts as a “reasonable” cleaning and inspection system?

This is where most cases are won or lost – and where stores often struggle.

A reasonable system means more than having a cleaning policy written into a staff handbook. Courts look at whether inspections were carried out at regular intervals, whether those inspections were documented with timestamps and staff signatures, and whether any hazards identified were dealt with promptly.

A store that can produce signed, timestamped inspection logs showing a check was completed a few minutes before your fall is in a much stronger position than one that produces a generic rota with no actual record of it being followed on the day.

In practice, many stores cannot produce that kind of detailed contemporaneous evidence. That gap matters – and it can be decisive.

Does a wet floor sign mean you cannot claim?

No – and this is one of the most common misconceptions about public place slip claims.

A wet floor sign does not automatically defeat your claim. Think about what a sign actually tells you: the store knew there was a hazard. It does not tell you the hazard was being dealt with.

Placing a sign and leaving a hazard unattended is not a reasonable response to a wet floor. The question is not whether a sign was there. It is whether the store’s overall response to the hazard was reasonable – and whether the hazard was cleared within an appropriate timeframe.

A sign placed over a spill that remained for twenty minutes, or an hour, tells a very different legal story than a spill identified and cleared within minutes. The sign is one piece of evidence. It is rarely the whole picture.

What if there was no CCTV footage of the incident?

Most successful claims for wet floor injuries do not depend on CCTV footage. It can help – footage showing how long a hazard was present before anyone responded can be powerful evidence. But its absence does not end the claim.

What matters far more is whether the store can produce documented evidence of its inspection system. If it cannot, or if the evidence it produces is vague or impossible to tie to the specific time and date of your accident, the burden shift from Ward v Tesco works in your favour.

Stores are also required to preserve CCTV footage once a potential claim is identified. Failure to do so – losing or deleting relevant footage after a notice of claim has been given – is a matter courts and defendants take seriously.

What should you do if you slipped on a wet floor in a public place?

The steps you take in the immediate aftermath matter – both for your health and for any claim.

Report the incident to the store manager before you leave. Ask for an incident report number or a written record that the incident was logged. If you cannot do this yourself, ask someone with you to do it on your behalf.

If you can, photograph the area where you fell. Photograph any hazard, any signage, and any cleaning equipment in the vicinity. Even a smartphone photograph with a timestamp is useful evidence.

Note the names or contact details of anyone who witnessed your fall. Their evidence may not be essential – but it can be helpful.

Seek medical attention as soon as possible, even if you think your injuries are minor. A contemporaneous medical record is important evidence of what happened and when. Do not wait to see how you feel in a few days.

Then speak to a solicitor. The three-year time limit for personal injury claims under the Limitation Act 1980 can feel distant – but evidence becomes harder to obtain as time passes. Inspection records, CCTV footage, and witness memories all fade. The sooner a solicitor is able to act, the better your position.

At Carter & Carter, we handle accidents in public places on a No Win No Fee basis. We take every case personally – your case will be handled by Chris Carter or David Healey from start to finish, not passed to a junior member of staff.