A Seven-Year Legal Saga Ends: Pick n Pay Finally Held Liable for Shopper’s Slip-and-Fall Injury

After more than seven years of legal battles, Pick n Pay has exhausted its final appeal and must accept liability for injuries a customer sustained after slipping on a spill in one of its Cape Town stores. The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) on Monday dismissed with costs the retailer’s last-ditch application for reconsideration, bringing a protracted case to a definitive close.

The incident dates back to 13 November 2017, when Maria Williams was shopping at the Pick n Pay in N1 City Mall, Goodwood. While walking briskly to fetch a forgotten item, she slipped on a spillwhich she described as roughly the size of an A3 sheet of paperand fell, sustaining soft tissue injuries to her hip and shoulder.

A Failure of “Routine Checks” and Oversight

The SCA judgment, penned by Acting Judge Daniel Dlodlo, was scathing in its assessment of Pick n Pay’s safety protocols. The court noted that the retailer was alerted to Williams’s injury not by its own staff, but by a third-party field marketer. This, combined with the absence of cleaning staff near the spill, indicated a “material breach” of the duty of care.

“The prolonged presence of the spill, coupled with lapses in procedural oversight, amounts to conduct that falls short of the standard expected,” Judge Dlodlo stated. “Pick n Pay’s omission in this regard is indicative of negligence.”

The retailer had argued it outsourced cleaning to a third party, Bluedot, and could not be held liable for their alleged negligence. The court rejected this, affirming that a store owner’s duty to ensure a safe environment for customers cannot be delegated away.

A Long Road to Accountability

Williams had initially sued in the Western Cape High Court, where Judge Patrick Gamble ruled in her favour in September 2023. Pick n Pay’s attempts to appeal that ruling were dismissed successively by the High Court and then by two SCA judges, who found the appeal lacked reasonable prospects of success. This latest dismissal by a full SCA panel marks the absolute end of the line.

The court found Pick n Pay’s petition amounted to “a mere attempt to reargue the merits” and lacked substantive merit.

What Happens Next?

The ruling confirms Pick n Pay is legally liable to pay 100% of the damages Williams can prove arising from the incident. A separate hearing will now determine the final compensation amount for her medical costs, past and future loss of earnings, and general damages for pain and suffering.

For retailers, the judgment is a stark reminder that maintaining visible, active floor safety protocols is not just good practiceit’s a non-delegable legal duty. For Maria Williams, it’s the end of a long fight for acknowledgment that her fall was due to a failure in the store’s basic responsibility to keep its aisles safe.

{Source: MoneyWeb}

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