Not everything foreseeable is likely...at home or abroad, as Mark Lee explains
When pursuing a claim for damages against a tour operator, the question of liability is decided with reference to local standards, rather than those that apply in the UK. It is, therefore, very important to obtain credible evidence from local experts to clarify the standards against which a hotel should be measured.
The Court of Appeal recently considered the existing case law and some potential ambiguities following the three day trial of Lougheed v On the Beach [2014] EWCA Civ 1538, [2014] All ER (D) 299 (Nov).
Mrs Lougheed suffered injury after she slipped while holding on to a handrail when descending polished granite steps in the hotel that she had booked as part of a package with On the Beach. It was suggested that the steps were wet. The parties agreed the value of the claim at £30,000, though liability was denied.
The claim was based upon reg 15(1) of the Package Travel, Package Holiday and Package Tours Regulations 1992 (SI 1992/3288), which states: “The defendant is liable
