Public liability claims:
how a visitor's injury is investigated.

In 2020 the High Court of Uganda found Mandela National Stadium liable to a wedding guest who fell into an uncovered manhole in the venue's parking area and fractured her leg. The judge, applying the occupiers' liability principle, awarded the guest just over UGX 11 million — UGX 7.78 million for medical expenses that had been strictly proved, and UGX 3.5 million in general damages. The decision is a useful lens for understanding how a public liability claim actually works: the insurer's policy responds to a legal liability for bodily injury to a third party, but that liability has to be established from the facts of the incident. The assessor's role is to investigate those facts before anyone agrees to pay.

What a public liability policy responds to

Public liability insurance indemnifies the insured against sums the insured becomes legally liable to pay for bodily injury to third parties, or loss of or damage to their property, caused by events arising in connection with the insured's business and occurring during the policy period anywhere the policy applies — usually on the insured's premises and in connection with their operations. It is a liability policy, not a claim-reimbursement policy, and it draws four limits of the picture: the injury must be caused during the currency of the policy; it must arise in connection with the insured activities or premises; the insured must be found legally liable; and the claim is met subject to the indemnity limits. It does not cover the insured's own employees (that is workmen's compensation territory) or the insured's own property (that is material damage cover).

The trigger is legal liability — not the mere fact of an accident. An injury on premises is not automatically the occupier's fault. The law of occupiers' liability requires the occupier — the person with sufficient control over the premises to be under a duty of care — to take reasonable care to see that visitors are reasonably safe in using the premises for the purpose for which they were invited. That is a standard of reasonable care, not a guarantee of safety. Between the accident and any payment sits a factual investigation.

Establishing the cause: the scene, the witnesses, the records

The investigation begins at the scene, and the difference between a good outcome and a contested one is often how soon the assessor gets there. Photographs and measurements of the hazard — the uncovered manhole, the wet floor, the broken stair, the poor lighting — taken while the condition still exists make the file. Witness accounts, ideally obtained while the accident is fresh, put the event into sequence. Closed-circuit television, where it exists, is decisive, which is why producers and shopping centres should preserve CCTV footage from the moment of an accident rather than letting recordings overwrite themselves.

The assessor also reconstructs the visitor's status and the purpose of their presence. The duty of care is owed most fully to lawful visitors, and the law recognises categories — invitees and licensees are today generally treated as visitors, while the duty owed to a trespasser is more limited. In the manhole case, the guest was at the stadium for a wedding she had been invited to attend, which made her a visitor with the full benefit of the occupier's common duty of care. Whether the injured person was a customer, a contractor's employee, or someone on the property without permission materially changes the analysis.

Fault: the test of reasonable care

Liability is a question of fault, and fault is measured by what the occupier knew, what a reasonable person would have done about it, and what was reasonably foreseeable. A hidden danger — an uncovered manhole in a dark, unwarned car park — demands positive steps: cover it, light it, or warn clearly. An obvious danger, once plainly warned about, may satisfy the duty. The court in the stadium case emphasised that warning signs are only effective if they actually communicate the risk to a visitor passing by — in all circumstances, the communication must be effective, and the obligation is judged against what a reasonable and prudent occupier would do.

Contributory negligence is examined with equal care. If the injured visitor was themselves careless — heedless of an obvious warning, or on premises they should not have been — the claim may be reduced or defeated. The file therefore records the visitor's own conduct as well as the condition of the premises. In the leading Ugandan cases on the neighbouring question of vicarious liability, courts have also been careful to distinguish the carrier's negligence from the third party's contributory conduct — a disciplined habit of mind the assessor applies to every incident.

Quantum: what the injury is worth

The financial side of the claim divides into special and general damages. Special damages — medical bills, transport, lost earnings, physiotherapy — must be specifically pleaded and strictly proved by receipts and records; in the stadium case the court allowed the medical expenses that were exhibited but rejected the residual claims as speculative. General damages compensate pain, suffering and loss of amenity, and are assessed by the court's discretion against the nature and extent of the injury and comparable awards. The assessor collects the medical reports, verifies the treatment actually received, and tests the claimed financial losses against documents — the same evidentiary discipline the court itself applies.

Contributory negligence operates as a percentage reduction on the award, and future expected losses — continuing care, lost future earnings — are only allowed where properly supported. A claim that is real but overstated will be settled at its true value, which is exactly why the disciplined presentation of medical and financial evidence, through the assessor, serves the injured party as well as the insurer.