Kraków district court dismisses wrist injury claim over fall at wet entrance

The District court in Kraków dismissed Anna Wilk’s claim for 1,200 zł against Piotr Maj over a fall at a wet entrance. It awarded no damages, finding that she had not proved the warning sign was placed too late or that the fall caused the claimed wrist injury and expenses.

The dispute turned on a narrow question: was a warning already in place when Wilk entered, or was it brought out only after she fell? The court said the evidence left that timing unresolved.

Witness 1 gave admitted testimony that, after hearing the fall and going to the entrance, Witness 1 saw Maj carrying a folded warning sign toward it. That supported Wilk’s account, the court said, but did not establish that no sign had already been there: Witness 1 had not seen the entrance beforehand.

Wilk’s photograph showed a wet entrance and a warning sign beside it shortly after the fall, but could not show when the sign was placed. Maj’s recollection that he had put it there earlier was not independently confirmed. Because Wilk bore the burden of proving her claim, the unresolved timing meant late placement was not proved.

The court also found no proof in the hearing record connecting an injury or expense to the fall or establishing the amount claimed. Medical records were not the only possible form of proof, it said, but there was no independent evidence of injury, treatment, expenses or another measurable loss.

Maj’s side had referred to a receipt supposedly showing a purchase after the fall, but no receipt was presented. The court did not treat that assertion as evidence. It also found that Maj had not proved his allegation that Wilk’s phone use contributed to the fall.

Wilk’s side argued that Witness 1’s observation supported her account that the warning came too late. It accepted that neither the witness nor the photograph settled the timing and acknowledged that no further medical records, receipts or other independent proof of injury or expenses were available.

Maj maintained that he placed the sign before Wilk arrived and asked for dismissal. His side argued that the photograph and Witness 1’s limited view did not prove otherwise, and did not ask the court to decide the case on the phone-use allegation.

Wilk sought compensation for a wrist injury and related expenses following the fall. The court distinguished the parties’ submissions from admitted testimony: statements about what a party could say were not themselves testimony in the hearing record.

The dismissal does not mean the court found that Wilk did not fall or that Maj’s account of the sign’s timing was conclusively true. It means the evidence in this record did not establish the facts needed for an award.