It sounds like the start of a joke: where is the most dangerous place in a supermarket? In a recent judgment by the Supreme Court of Appeal in Checkers Supermarket v Lindsay 2009 (4) SA 459 (SCA) / [2009] 3 All SA 487 (SCA), the answer is the food and vegetable section.

The matter concerns an injury incurred by the respondent in the appeal, Lindsay, when she slipped and fell in a supermarket in Pinetown, KwaZulu-Natal. Lindsay sued Checkers for negligence and won in the KwaZulu-Natal High Court, Pietermaritzburg(see Lindsay v Checkers Supermarket 2008 (4) SA 634 (N)).Lindsay had slipped on the floor on an oil patch, which had not been cleaned by the supermarket. In its judgment, paragraph 2, the Supreme Court of Appeal states that "[t]he fruit and vegetable section is a known high risk area where spillages which cause the floor to be slippery, always occurred. It is common cause that the respondent's fall was the third in approximately a year in that supermarket."

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Written by: Neil Kirby, Director at Werksmans incorporating Jan S. de Villiers