Month: August 2023

Slipping accidents in restaurants are usually the result of wet and slippery floors and outdoor surfaces, which may be due to recent cleaning, spilled drinks, food and litter, rainwater trampled inside or ice and snow in winter. When such hazards cannot be sorted out immediately by staff, warning signs, protective barriers and anti-slip matting should be used to prevent customers from accessing the particular surface and risk slipping over. 

When a customer slips and falls through no fault of their own due to a slippery floor in a restaurant, it will often be the result of negligence on the part of management or staff. Restaurant managers are responsible for devising and implementing an efficient system of inspection and cleaning which results in slipping hazards being identified and dealt with as quickly as possible. They must also ensure that sufficient staff are available to maintain safety standards at all times.

Customers may also be burnt in restaurants due the negligence of management and staff. Hot drinks or food may be spilled over diners by restaurant servers, for example, when the latter are handing a hot drink across a counter or serving food at a table. Carelessness and failure to pay proper attention on the part of individual staff members is often the cause of this type of accident, which may leave first or second degree burn injuries, and long-term or even permanent scarring.

Restaurant owners owe a duty of care to their customers, and under the terms of the Occupiers Liability Act 1957 must take all reasonable measures to protect them from getting injured while dining on the premises. CCTV footage from a restaurant is often helpful in proving the precise circumstances of an accident. Contact our solicitors with expertise in claiming compensation for slips and burns at restaurants for free legal advice that you can rely on:

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/accidents-at-restaurants/who-is-responsible-for-a-slip-in-a-restaurant.html

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/accidents-at-restaurants/compensation-for-customer-burnt-in-restaurant.html

The recent celebrity-inspired trend for thicker eyebrows and eyebrow shaping has seen High Definition (HD) Brows become one of the most popular treatments at beauty salons in the UK. Eyebrows are threaded, waxed and tinted during an HD Brows treatment leaving them looking fuller and sculpted, with results lasting for up to six weeks.

One of the main risks is the variety of HD Brows products available. Salons sometimes use products that they are not affiliated with, meaning that staff may not be trained in how to use them safely. As with all waxing treatments, burns from overheated or spilled wax can cause pain, blistering and scarring, while a person’s skin may be torn if the waxing strips are pulled off too forcefully or against the grain. Tinting solutions contain chemicals which can damage the skin and the eyes, while errors during threading may cause skin damage around the eyebrows. 

HD Brows clients also risk experiencing an allergic reaction to ingredients contained in threading, waxing and tinting products, with potentially serious consequences. In 2015, it was reported that a teenager had been hospitalised and potentially left scarred for life following an HD Brows treatment. She was hospitalised three days after the procedure having experienced a severe allergic reaction that left her eyes swollen shut, her eyebrow area infected, and caused her eyebrow hairs to fall out.

The standard skin patch test had been carried out two days before the treatment and no possibility of an adverse reaction was detected. The teenager’s case emphasises the fact that people should approach HD Brows treatments with caution, as both the beauty salon and product supplier could not explain why the treatment had caused such disastrous results.

If you have been injured by an HD Brows waxing treatment at a beauty salon, our female lawyers offer free and confidential advice. Our considerable experience in this area of law means that you are guaranteed the highest quality service standards and the best possible legal representation:

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/hair-beauty/compensation-for-eyebrow-waxing-burns.html

Waxing treatments at beauty salons are in high demand at this time of year, with appointments booked in advance of holidays abroad and staycations in the UK. While most waxing procedures are carried out safely and successfully, a small minority of women continue to be injured every year by poorly performed waxes at salons which, apart from the physical pain and emotional distress, can completely ruin a long-awaited holiday.

Most waxing injuries are caused by therapist errors during treatments. Excessive use of force when removing the waxing strips, removing them too early or leaving them too long, applying them in the wrong place or failing to remove hair in the natural direction of growth may tear the skin, causing bleeding and potential scarring. Spilled or overheated wax may cause burn injuries with symptoms including skin rashes, blistering, scarring, ingrown hairs and infections like staphylococcus, cellulitis and folliculitis.

There is also the possibility that a client will experience an allergic reaction to ingredients contained in the wax used during a treatment. This can require emergency hospital treatment with potentially very serious consequences. For this reason, beauty salons must conduct skin patch tests on new clients 24-48 hours before a waxing procedure to identify any potential sensitivities and the possibility of an allergic reaction to the wax.

Disfiguring skin damage and scarring will require costly surgery to correct with uncertain results. In these circumstances, an injured person is likely to suffer profound emotional distress, as well as physical pain and suffering. Relationships may be damaged by this type of injury, with common side effects including loss of sexual desire, while a perception of deformity may cause extreme stress and depression.

Beauty salons are expected to perform waxing treatments in a reasonably competent manner, and if a client is injured due to an error, there will be strong grounds for claiming compensation. Find out more:

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/hair-beauty/compensation-for-a-bikini-waxing-injury.html

The latest Office for National Statistics (ONS) data shows that average private rental prices paid by UK tenants increased by a record rate of 5.1% in the year to June 2023. This will provide little relief to the estimated 1.4 million UK homeowners, including many buy-to-let landlords, with mortgages that are due to expire in 2023, who face a steep increase in their monthly payments following recent Bank of England base interest rate rises.

The impact appears to be already being felt, with ONS data collected in July finding that 45% of mortgage holders had seen their payments rise in the last six months, while 40% of tenants and mortgage holders reported that it was very or somewhat difficult to afford their rent or mortgage payments. Successive hikes have seen the interest rate on outstanding fixed-rate mortgages rise from 2.08% in November 2022, to over 6% in August 2023, meaning that many homeowners are facing increases of more than 50% on their monthly mortgage payments.   

On top of the financial pain caused by rising interest rates, buy-to-let landlords have been hit by gradually phased-in mortgage interest tax relief changes, which now means that higher-rate taxpayers are unable to claim any tax back at all on their mortgage payments (after receiving up to 40% tax relief previously) because the new tax credit only refunds tax paid at the basic 20% rate. Furthermore, while incorporating a buy-to-let property will allow tax-deductible mortgage expenses, capital gains tax will be payable on the transfer to the company. Therefore, landlords who purchased their property in the past may not find this solution economically viable.

Our firm’s solicitors have invested in property themselves and understand the cash situation facing many buy-to-let landlords. We have decades of experience of buying and selling residential properties in the city of Liverpool and across Merseyside. Legal advice from conveyancing solicitors with local knowledge and expertise can be critically important in safeguarding the interests of a buy-to-let property buyer or seller.

Find out more: https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/liverpool-solicitors-for-buy-to-let-properties.html

The growing market in the UK for rental bikes, e-bikes and e-scooters is already a massive market in the US, where Citi Bike, New York City’s biggest bike rental company, has been hit with numerous claims (amounting to millions of dollars) for bike crash injuries, many caused by poor maintenance and the defective state of its bikes. While customers are expected to check their rented bike, e-bike or e-scooter for damage before riding it, maintenance issues or manufacturing defects will not necessarily be apparent, while a software malfunction on an e-bike or e-scooter would be completely unforeseeable.

Another example of the risks facing rental bike, e-bike and e-scooter riders comes from Sweden, where the city of Stockholm was forced to suspend its e-bike rental scheme over fears that the vehicles could unexpectedly catch fire. The subsequent technical inspection found that an astonishing 58% of the e-bikes had known damage or faults, but were still available to rent. Many of these related to frame problems for which the e-bike supplier or manufacturer was most likely responsible. However, a proper system of inspection and maintenance by the city of Stockholm rental scheme operator should have ensured that riders were not put at risk of injury by being provided with unsafe e-bikes.     

Either or both the rental company and manufacturer may therefore be to some degree responsible for bike, e-bike and e-scooter crashes and the resulting injuries. In the same way as rental companies, bike share scheme providers must also make sure that their bicycles are free from defects and safe to use. Riders risk serious injury if, for example, an e-bike travelling at 15 mph malfunctions and the rider loses control while crossing a busy junction. Both riders and pedestrians may be injured in accidents of this kind, and if the defective state of a bike, e-bike or e-scooter was the principal or contributing cause, both will be entitled to claim compensation.    

If you have been injured in an accident caused by a defective rental or shared bike, e-bike or e-scooter, contact our firm for expert legal advice from solicitors who are themselves cyclists with many years of experience in claiming compensation for riders injured through no fault of their own. Find out more:

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/road-accident-claims/rented-and-shared-bike-accidents.html

https://www.bartlettslaw.co.uk/road-accident-claims/defective-rental-ebike-escooter-accidents.html