Your Liability
Duty of Care
To avoid liability for negligence, you must meet your duty of care to others. Avoid acts or omissions which you can reasonably foresee would be likely to cause injury or property damage. In the case of your pharmacy, this would include those at your business premises, visitors and neighbours.
Be proactive
Those to whom you owe a duty of care is broad. You must be proactive in your pharmacy to reduce risks to the public. Due to the long hour/high traffic environment, the risks to the public are real and can be substantial in the event of an accident.
Contributory Negligence
Sometimes a customer might do things that are dangerous (especially young children) This can contribute to the cause of an accident, but the law tends to take the view that an occupier should manage for ‘worst cases’ so these contributions are acknowledged but discounted. In practice, this means that you must look at risks very conservatively.
Leased Premises
Where you lease your business premises, it pays to be vigilant in reporting risks in the vicinity (in writing) to these responsible for the area. Your lease may in fact make you directly accountable for spaces around or even outside the bounds of your pharmacy.
Temporary Signs
Mounting a temporary sign where a problem is identified is a prudent step to lower risk and show care however, you cannot rely indefinitely on such a sign if you could reasonably remove a hazard. Permanent signs should only be used where they encourage cautious behaviour in what is an otherwise safe environment.
