Premises Liability and Slip & Fall

If you slip and fall on property belonging to a business or another person, determining who is responsible for your injuries can be challenging. Establishing who should pay for your medical expenses can prove to be just as difficult.

A person can slip and fall on the job as well. According to The National Safety Council, almost 49,000 people were hurt badly enough to need days off of work to recuperate. The organization also reported that approximately 9.2 million people required a visit to the emergency room for fall-related injuries in 2016.

A skilled slip and fall attorney will be able to answer the questions you have after a mishap on another party’s premises.

Liability in a Slip and Fall Claim

In order to prove that another party was liable for injuries sustained in a slip and fall accident, the injured party must establish one of the following conditions:

• The owner of the property or an employee of the business should have noticed a hazard on the property and repaired or removed the possible dangerous condition (i.e. a broken railing on a staircase, a pothole, an obstruction in a dimly lit hallway, etc.). The essential question is whether or not a reasonable individual would have been able to identify the condition as dangerous or whether the property owner or employee had enough time to fix the situation before the incident occurred.
• The owner of the property or their employee was, in fact, the cause of the hazardous condition that led to the slip and fall injury. For example, they could have left an obstacle on a walking path and a reasonable person would have known they just created a condition that could result in a slip or fall.

Establishing Negligence

In order for a defendant to be held liable for damages in a case involving a slip or fall, he or she must have failed to act as a reasonable person would have under the same circumstances.

There are factors that the injured party should consider when trying to determine if the property owner or their employee acted reasonably:

• Did the property owner or employee routinely check for possible hazards? If so, is there a log, journal or other record showing the check was made immediately prior to the accident?
• Was the dangerous obstacle or hazardous condition around long enough that a reasonable property owner or employee would have taken the steps to remove it?
• Could the dangerous obstacle or hazardous condition have been remedied (i.e. moving the hazard, placing warning signs around the area, blocking access to the dangerous area, etc.)?
• Was the creation of the possible hazard reasonably justifiable? If so, did the reasonable justification exist at the time of the accident?

If you have been injured after slipping and falling on another party’s premises and need professional help, talk to an experienced slip and fall attorney who can give you a better understanding of the legal intricacies of these types of cases.