Damage to car at Petrol Station

[daerlegin]

Hi I recently filled up my car at a well known supermarket filling station. Whilst filling my car a petrol nozzle from an adjacent pump fell out of the pump and onto the rear quarter of my car. It has smashed the rear light assembly. I reported this at the time to the attendant who said "oh they're always doing that". I then went into the main store and reported it and completed their accident book.

I have received a letter from their head office this morning advising that they have looked at the incident on CCTV and whilst they are sorry it is the previous customers responsibility to replace the nozzle safely in the pump. They are therefore not responsible for the damage to my car.

Whilst I don't dispute their statement of the customer being responsible for replacing the nozzle in the pump, when one replace the nozzle, the pump shuts off and you can then make payment. I believe that you could safely assume that if you had done this that a nozzle was properly back in the pump.

Surely this is totally the responsibility of the petrol station in that (i) the cashier said "its always doing it (I don't have proof she said that) and (ii) it must be faulty if it jumps out on its own.

I am getting an estimate for the damage but as its all one large light cluster I imagine around £250 + vat plus labour.

Grateful for any thoughts / next course of action.


Nigel

[des8]

Hi and welcome

Interesting situation!
As a property owner, the supermarket are responsible for ensuring that their property is well maintained and does not present unnecessary risks of injury to visitors to the premises (that includes damage to third party property)
Damage caused by an improperly replaced pump would indicate that the property was ill maintained, even if misplaced by another customer.

At least that's my view!
Whether or not it would stand up in court is a different matter.

If the supermarket are blaming the previous customer, ask them to check their CCTV and give you the vehicle registration number of the car whose driver caused the problem.
If in your position I would tell them I was considering legal action against them , and they should preserve that CCTV footage if they are unprepared to give you the details requested.

Whether that will work in your favour, or if it is even worth carrying through the threat of court action, I wouldn't like to hazard a guess.
However the cost of defending such an action would be greater for them than the cost of coming to an out of court settlement

[daerlegin]

Thanks for that, most helpful

[mttm]

You should try to confirm how many times this has happened before. Whether by asking for official confirmation, or casually bringing it up with the cashier there at the time.

If this is happening often _and_ the supermarket's aware of it, you'd like to think a judge would view that as acting negligently.

You never know, there's a good chance head office aren't aware of what's going on, and don't want this happening to their customers either!