Woman who fell when standing on toilet loses damages bid

A WOMAN who fell as she stood on a toilet bowl to open a window has lost a damages claim, after a judge ruled she should have put her own safety before concern for others using the cubicle after her.

Marie Wallace, 63, had wanted to air the cubicle "as a courtesy" for colleagues at the school in Glasgow where she worked. However, she could not reach the window and stepped on to the bowl. It toppled over and she suffered a severe injury to her foot.

Mrs Wallace sued Glasgow City Council, but Lord Tyre absolved the council of blame for the accident.

He said at the Court of Session in Edinburgh that there had been obvious safe alternatives for someone, such as 5ft 1in-tall Mrs Wallace, who could not reach the pull ring on the window.

"The first would have been to request a suitable window pole from the janitor before entering the cubicle. If no pole was available … then in my view the appropriate course of action would have been to leave the window closed and, perhaps, to have made representations in due course to the head teacher that a pole should be supplied in the vicinity of the toilet, as is now the case," Lord Tyre said.

"Opening the window was obviously a matter of courtesy rather than something which had to be done…"

The accident happened in June 2007, a couple of months before Mrs Wallace, of Hillend Road, Clarkston, Glasgow, had been due to retire as a clerical assistant at Kirkriggs School in the city's Croftfoot Road.

She was helping with preparations for a visit by staff and pupils to Strathclyde Country Park and needed to use one of the ladies' staff toilets. She put her foot on the rim of the toilet bowl and stretched for the window ring, which was about 7ft above floor level, but the bowl moved to the side and detached from the floor. She fell and landed heavily on her left heel and the bowl fell on top of her left foot.

Mrs Wallace required surgery for fractures to the foot and a detached Achilles tendon, and her recovery had been "slow and incomplete", the court heard. She still suffered stiffness and pain, and there had been a significant adverse effect on her quality of life, including her ability to play with her grandchildren. Further surgery was possible, but she was reluctant because of the risks and the prospect of another three to six months of being housebound while recuperating.

Lord Tyre said he did not regard Mrs Wallace'a attitude as unreasonable but he ruled against her.

The council argued that other options had been open to Mrs Wallace and suggested she could have sought out someone taller to open the window.

Lord Tyre said he believed that to be "wholly unrealistic".

He added: "She might have had a long and fruitless search, by which time the purpose of opening the window - to ventilate it prior to use by the next person - might well have been defeated."

However, Lord Tyre did accept that Mrs Wallace could simply have left the window closed.

"She agreed when this was put to her, but pointed out that this might have left the toilet in a disagreeable condition for the next user. That may be so, but it does seem to me that if she found herself in a situation where there was no suitable pole readily available...it would be more reasonable to leave the window shut than to climb on to the toilet to open it.

"It was a deliberate act which she acknowledged in her evidence to have been dangerous and which she had done on an unspecified number of previous occasions."

PRIZE PAYOUTS

A SERGEANT from Lothians and Borders Police was awarded 5,000 plus 20,000 costs in 2005 after he slipped on ice in the police station car park.

Another Scottish police officer motorcyclist successfully sued his bosses for 5,000 because of the "excessive noise" he suffered while on traffic duties,

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