Judge rules grandmother’s grotto fall was Santa’s fault

A grandmother fractured her thigh after slipping on a plastic icicle which should have been cleared away by Father Christmas and his elf at Selfridges’ grotto, the Appeal Court has ruled. Joan Dufosse, 73, was having a photograph taken with her two grandchildren at the Oxford Street store when she trod on the stray Christmas tree bauble and fell. She fractured her left thigh and needed surgery to fit a plate and screw to her leg. She has yet to make a full recovery from the incident in November 2009. Mrs Dufosse, from Southampton, made a claim for compensation from Melbry Events Ltd, which ran the grotto, but it was rejected by a judge at Southampton county court in March.

After hearing evidence from Father Christmas and his elf, the judge decided that the icicle had not been in plain view and they should not have been expected to remove it. Yesterday the decision was reversed at London’s Civil Appeal Court, where Lord Justice Rix, Lord Justice McFarlane and Sir Mark Potter, the President of the Family Division of the High Court, ruled that the “offending icicle” should have been spotted. Mrs Dufosse is now in line for up to £30,000 in compensation. “The accident happened when Mrs Dufosse, at the request of the elf, stepped sideways and backward into the corner,” said Lord Justice Rix, ruling in favour of the grandmother.



“It was not her duty in these circumstances to ensure there were no tripping hazards in the room which might cause something amiss. This was purely the duty of Santa and the elf.” Earlier, Mrs Dufosse’s barrister John Bate-Williams, had said: “I hesitated to trouble the Court of Appeal with a case involving Santa, an elf and Mrs Dufosse, but this is a case in which this lady suffered a very nasty injury. There was no justification for the finding that the bauble was partly hidden. Even if it was partly concealed, the defendants should have noticed it. It was not the family’s responsibility to see this icicle. They had the excitement of grandchildren going to see Father Christmas and a very pretty elf beckoning them in.

“It is absolutely the responsibility of the elf and Father Christmas at all times to keep the grotto clean and tidy,” he told the court. Lord Justice Rix dismissed claims that Mrs Dufosse was partly to blame for not spotting the icicle herself. He praised the “excellence of the system” of safety checks that Melbry Events had put in place, but he concluded that human error by Father Christmas and the elf had led to the accident. “The correct inference was that, on this occasion, Santa and his elf were not as careful in taking precautions against debris on the floor as they should have been,” said Lord Justice Rix. The exact amount of damages Mrs Dufosse will receive will now be either agreed or assessed at a further court hearing.