Should I Sue for a Slip and Fall Injury?

Property owners have a duty of care to customers and other guests to ensure reasonably safe conditions on their property. Among other things, this means preventing and removing dangerous slipping and tripping hazards.

You may have a slip and fall accident claim against a business or property owner if an unreasonable safety hazard caused your accident. If you or your loved one was injured in a slip and fall accident, contact an experienced premises liability attorney for legal advice.

What Is Premises Liability?

A slip and fall case is a type of premises liability claim. “In fact, most premises liability claims are a slip and fall or trip and fall,” says Michael J. Epstein, a personal injury lawyer in Rochelle Park, New Jersey.

Slip and fall accidents are common and can occur in many different settings, including parking lots, walkways, grocery stores, and public property.

Falls are often due to steep or uneven surfaces or wet floors. While many slip and fall injuries are relatively minor, they can result in serious injuries and even a trip to the emergency room. Injuries include:

• Sprains
• Broken bones
• Spinal cord injuries
• Concussions and traumatic brain injuries

Depending on your injuries, you may need significant medical attention and face long-term medical bills and time away from work.

What You Have To Prove in a Slip and Fall Claim

Premises liability claims “arise out of a situation where a person is injured on someone else’s property as a result of the property owner’s negligence,” says Epstein. Negligence generally means there’s a “dangerous condition on the owner’s property that is not fixed or discovered when it should have been, and it leads to a person falling and getting injured.”

There are four elements to a personal injury claim involving negligence:

Element 1: The Duty of Care

“Any negligence case starts with the question: Did the defendant have a duty to take action or not to take action with respect to the other party?” says Epstein. In premises liability cases, owners are responsible for taking reasonable steps to eliminate dangerous or hazardous conditions on their property.

But what are reasonable steps?

The answer varies depending on the type of property or business involved and the state laws where you live. Typically, what is reasonable depends on the type of property and the property owner. For example, Epstein notes that in New Jersey, if you’re a “single-family homeowner, and someone is injured on your sidewalk, but you never put the sidewalk in or repaired it, there’s generally no liability.”

However, “If you’re walking at a strip mall and there’s a raised slab of sidewalk that catches your foot, causing you to fall and be injured, the property owner of the strip mall would be liable for allowing a dangerous condition to exist for their customers.”

Element 2: Breach

Breach means the owner failed in their duty of care toward the injured person. Depending on your state law and situation, you’ll generally have to prove one of the following:

• The owner should have known about the dangerous condition
• The owner did know about the dangerous condition, but didn’t fix it
• The owner caused the dangerous condition.

Element 3: Causation

The owner’s omission or commission of an act is what caused your injuries, as opposed to some other factor that the owner had nothing to do with.

Element 4: Damages

The owner’s breach of duty actually harmed you. If there was a raised sidewalk that tripped you, but you weren’t injured, there is no damage involved. “What you can get in a premises liability case is what is reasonable and fair compensation for the injured party’s harms and losses,” says Epstein. “It’s not an award; it’s compensation to make the injured person whole.”

Damages can include economic and noneconomic damages. Economic losses include medical bills, lost income, and future lost wages. Noneconomic damages include emotional distress, loss of enjoyment, and pain and suffering.

Be Aware of How Your State Apportions Liability for Personal Injuries

Personal injury laws vary from state to state in how they assign liability. For example, states differ in how they address the following questions:

• What if your injuries aren’t entirely the property owner’s fault?
• What if your injury was partly your fault?
• If you’re partly at fault, can you still get damages in a lawsuit, or will you be barred from recovery?

Some completely bar recovery if you are partly to blame for your injuries. Others allow a modified or reduced form of recovery. For example, if the court concludes that you were 25 percent responsible for your injuries, you can only recover 75 percent from the defendant in the personal injury lawsuit.

“The fact that Mississippi is a true comparative negligence state is actually a benefit in that a defendant can still be found negligent for whatever percentage of negligence they are responsible for, regardless of any negligence on the part of the plaintiff,” says Rocky Wilkins, a personal injury attorney at law firm Morgan & Morgan in Jackson.

“If Mississippi were a contributory negligence state, any negligence on the part of the plaintiff would be a bar to recovery.”

Knowing the negligence laws in your state is important for estimating the compensation you can recover through a lawsuit. Talk to an experienced attorney who can explain the legal issues under your state laws.

Know the Deadlines for Filing a Lawsuit

It’s best to pursue legal action sooner rather than later. However, some plaintiffs don’t realize they need to take legal action until months or years after an accident. Some injuries from a fall, such as brain injuries, aren’t apparent until much later.

Every state has a law called the statute of limitations that sets the time limit for plaintiffs to bring a lawsuit after their injuries. Statutes of limitations vary depending on the state and type of case, but generally range from two to six years.

If you bring a lawsuit, it’s imperative to file it before the statute of limitations expires. If you miss the deadline, you cannot recover damages. In most premises liability cases, including slip and falls, the property owner’s insurance company will compensate you for your injuries. You may have to balance negotiations with the insurance company with the timeframe of filing a lawsuit.

If the insurance company delays or does not pay out, it is a good reason to pursue legal action. Make sure you are within the legal timeframe.

After Seeking Medical Attention, Report, and Gather Evidence

“If a person’s injured, first and foremost, they need to get medical treatment,” says Epstein. “In a premises liability case, any lawyer is going to need evidence of the dangerous condition that caused the injury.”

You should try to get evidence as soon as possible, since the unsafe conditions that caused your injuries could be changed after the fact. This would make proving a case more difficult. For example, say someone trips because of a raised sidewalk. No one notifies the defendant that there’s going to be a lawsuit. Meanwhile, the defendant already had plans to fix the sidewalk the week after the accident.

In this sort of situation, “The dangerous condition could be altered so that you can’t evaluate it. That’s a problem,” Epstein says. “If you’re injured, have someone take some pictures of the dangerous condition as soon as you can. Try to preserve the evidence.”

Consult with an Experienced Premises Liability Attorney

Injured individuals should get legal help as quickly as possible, “so the lawyer can protect and preserve the injured person’s rights, including putting the defendant on notice that there may be a claim and that the evidence should be preserved,” says Epstein.

“A lot of potential clients think they cannot recover because the business won’t admit any wrongdoing,” says Wilkins. “Before taking the defendant’s word, you should talk to a lawyer because there are several ways to prove that a business did something wrong.”

Many slip and fall attorneys provide free consultations to learn about your case. These free case evaluations let you get helpful legal advice and decide if the attorney meets your needs. A slip and fall lawyer can also give you a good idea of how much you can recover in a fair settlement payout.

Visit the Super Lawyers directory to find an experienced premises liability attorney in your area.