Women could be making more public liability claims because there are more women in public spaces, a spokesman for the Injuries Board has said.
“Some of these accidents happen out on the street during the day when it might be more likely that there is a higher percentage of women there, while there would be a higher percentage of men in the workforce,” he said. “There could be accidents out in the playground, the supermarket, and again that’s probably indicative that there are more females out with their kids in those places than men. They can happen anywhere: restaurants, gyms, hotels, in the park, on the street.”
He said there were also some claims involving the wearing of high heels. “We did come across a few cases where people would say in their claim that they tripped on high heels or that, but people are not generally inclined to sue the makers of the shoe.”
The prevalence of women making public liability claims may be due to there being more women in public spaces, as opposed to in the workforce, where the trend is reversed, a spokesman for the Injuries Board has said.
Seven out of 10 public liability claims in 2013 were made by women, new figures from the Injuries Board show, while men make up 69 per cent of claims made in the workplace.
“In public liability cases, it is more likely to be women than men, whereas in workplace accidents it’s the other way around,” the spokesman said. “It’s probably more indicative of the breakdown in the workforce in that there are more men in the workforce than women. Some of these accidents happen out on the street during the day when it might be more likely that there is a higher percentage of women there, while there would be a higher percentage of men in the workforce.
“There could be accidents out in the playground, the supermarket, and again that’s probably indicative that there are more females out with their kids in those places than men. They can happen anywhere: restaurants, gyms, hotels, in the park, on the street.
He said the Injuries Board did not see the trend in more women making public liability claims “as anything to do with a greater tendency to claim”, but he appealed for businesses to invest in health and safety. “A huge amount of these accidents involve slips or trips, which we would classify as preventable. They’re less serious in nature compared to the likes of the motor cases.
“Somebody goes into a supermarket and slips on a wet floor. You can get cases where people slip on the street because the council was carrying out work there and it wasn’t cordoned off properly or put back together properly again. This is costing businesses money. We would always make the point that it is worth investing money in health and safety purely from an economic point of view, because you see what it might cost you in the long run.”
