Teacher wants £1.8m after slip on a wet floor
A TEACHER is suing a private school for almost £2million after she slipped on a wet floor and broke her wrist.
Lindsey Shaw, 59, claims the £35,000-a-year Mill Hill School was negligent by allowing her to walk over the recently-mopped corridor.
The English tutor says she suffered painful injuries and depression after the incident.
Her lawyers are demanding £1.8million in compensation, arguing managers should have put up warning signs at the north London school four years ago.
The management accepts some liability but disputes the amount she is claiming, according to legal papers filed at Central London County Court.
Mrs Shaw’s barrister David White said: “Unbeknown to the claimant, the shiny floor of the corridor outside the meeting room was wet. She slipped and fell on her side, landing on her side and right wrist.”
Her husband took her to Barnet Hospital and she had
Lost self-belief...Lindsey Shaw
surgery at St John and St Elizabeth Hospital, in St John’s Wood. But the pain in her wrist and hand continued and she developed chronic regional pain syndrome – forcing her to leave her job.
Mr White said: “The claimant has pain in her right wrist, hand, right arm, right shoulder and back.
“She has had extensive hand therapy and physiotherapy and takes non-prescription medication to relieve the pain from her ongoing symptoms.
“The claimant has also suffered psychological injury, specifically a moderate depressive episode. She had supportive psychotherapy but symptoms continue.
“She has lost her confidence and self-belief and is very anxious. Her ongoing pain disturbs her sleep and impacts her ability to concentrate.”
In a short hearing before Judge Richard Roberts, he added that Mrs Shaw is able to do “virtually nothing in terms of work”.
Robert O’Leary, counsel to the Mill Hill School Foundation, said it admits “primary liability” but added the negligence was “in part”.
He said Mrs Shaw herself was partly to blame because she should have taken more care. The school claims yellow warning signs were in place in the corridor.
Founded in 1807, Mill Hill School includes businessmen and broadcasters among its alumni. They include Sir Denis Thatcher, husband of 1980s Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, and BBC legend Richard Dimbleby.