''Ward v. Tesco Stores Ltd.''

976 Year 976 ( CMLXXVI) was a leap year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar) of the Julian calendar. Events By place Byzantine Empire * January 10 – Emperor John I Tzimiskes dies at Constantinople, after ret ...

1 WLR 810, is an

English tort law English tort law concerns the compensation for harm to people's rights to health and safety, a clean environment, property, their economic interests, or their reputations. A "tort" is a wrong in civil, rather than criminal law, that usually requi ...

case concerning the doctrine of ''

res ipsa loquitur ''Res ipsa loquitur'' (Latin: ''"the thing speaks for itself"'') is a doctrine in the common law and Roman-Dutch law jurisdictions under which a court can infer negligence from the very nature of an accident or injury in the absence of direct evid ...

'' ("the thing speaks for itself"). It deals with the law of

negligence Negligence (Lat. ''negligentia'') is a failure to exercise appropriate and/or ethical ruled care expected to be exercised amongst specified circumstances. The area of tort law known as ''negligence'' involves harm caused by failing to act as a ...

and it set an important precedent in so called "trip and slip" cases which are a common occurrence.

Facts

The plaintiff slipped on some pink yoghurt in a

Tesco Tesco plc () is a British multinational groceries and general merchandise retailer headquartered in Welwyn Garden City, England. In 2011 it was the third-largest retailer in the world measured by gross revenues and the ninth-largest in th ...

store in Smithdown Road,

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

. It was not clear whether or not Tesco staff were to blame for the spillage. It could have been another customer, or the wind, or anything else. Spillages happened roughly 10 times a week and staff had standing orders to clean anything up straight away. As Lawton LJ observed in his judgment,at 814 ff. The trial judge had held in Mrs Ward's favour and she was awarded £137.50 in damages. Tesco appealed.

Judgment

It was held by a majority (

Lawton LJ Sir Frederick Horace Lawton (21 December 1911 – 3 February 2001) was a British barrister and judge who served as Lord Justice of Appeal from 1972 to 1986. Early life and career Frederick Lawton was born in Wandsworth, London, the son of Wi ...

and Megaw LJ) that even though it could not be said exactly what happened, the pink yoghurt being spilled spoke for itself as to who was to blame. Tesco was required to pay compensation. The plaintiff did not need to prove how long the spill had been there, because the burden of proof was on Tesco. Lawton LJ's judgment explained the previous case law, starting with ''Richards v. WF White & Co.''

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1 Lloyd's Rep.

Dissent

Omrod LJ disagreed with

and Megaw LJ on the basis that Tesco did not seem to have been able to do anything to have prevented the accident. He argued that they did not fail to take reasonable care, and in his words, the accident "could clearly have happened no matter what degree of care these defendants had taken."

Notes

{{reflist English tort case law English occupier case law Court of Appeal (England and Wales) cases 1976 in case law 1976 in British law Tesco