Every year many thousands of people in the suffer an injury when they slip or trip and fall on a surface such as a dangerous floor, flight of stairs or rough or uneven patch of ground. If that injury occurs on the property that is owned by someone else, such as a business, workplace, etc., the property owner may be liable for the injuries the person suffered. However, proving fault and therefore assigning liability in a slip and fall accident is not an easy task, and insurance companies representing property owners invariably try to shift the blame to the injured party, particularly by making the case that he or she was careless, distracted in some way that made the accident more likely to occur, did not heed warnings about the spot where the injury occurred, or did not have a legitimate reason for being at that location.
A competent personal injury attorney will, on the other hand, want to establish key facts underlying the slip and fall injury that will help prove that liability should be pinned on the property owner, including one of the following: either the property owner or an employee caused the perilous conditions that led to the slip and fall accident; the property owner or an employee knew of the dangerous surface but did not take steps to correct it; or the property owner or an employee should have known about the dangerous surface because, under the so-called reasonable person standard, a reasonable person charged with caring for the property would have found out about the dangerous surface and taken the necessary steps to either repair or remove it.
A slip and fall injury case often pivots on the question of the property owner’s “reasonableness,” specifically with respect to whether he or she makes regular and thorough attempts to keep his or her property safe and clean. The attorney for the plaintiff in a slip and fall case will, again, want to gather important answers to questions surrounding the incident, including: how long the dangerous surface was in that condition; whether the property owner has a maintenance routine and proof of that maintenance; if there was a legitimate reason for an object causing the slip and fall to be where it was at the time of the accident; could an object causing the accident have been secured in a safe manner or placed in a difference location so as not to have triggered the incident; did poor or broken lighting play a role in causing the accident; and could a barrier have been erected or a warning have been delivered that would have prevented the accident from happening.
At the Brod Law Firm, we handle personal injury cases, including those involving a slip and fall incident, on a contingency fee basis, which means that no legal fees are owned if we do not obtain compensation on your behalf. If you or a loved one have been injured as the result of a slip and fall accident, please call us for a free case evaluation right away.
Contact us online or call us today at (800) 427-7020 for a FREE case evaluation.