Good question.

BA owes its customers a duty of care to ensure that they do not suffer damage as a result of the provision of BA services.

Did they discharge this duty of care?

Well it is arguable that they did not wet the seat and did not know the seat was wet and therefore they were not negligent.

However, it is possible to argue that they should have in place s sytem of checking seats (the planes are, after all, cleaned between flights) to ensure that there are no problems.

Which arguemnt would win - well that would be for a court to decide but I would guess (this is not my field) that BA would have the edge.

As for financial loss - that is not the whole story. If I sat on a seat that was soaked with urine I would feel unwell and unhappy and would be entitled to compemsation in respect of that too if negligence could be established.

The law aside, "it's an accident" is not enough of an excuse or fare paying passengers. we expect our service providers to arrange things in such a way that accidents wont happen!

I remember arriving in MIA with no luggage (dressed for a Scottish winter!). When I asekd what happened all the NW luggage person would say (and she wasn't that interested and never apologised) was that "it was an accident". I was tempted to comment that I was re-assured that it wasn't deliberate!

Stephen