Slip and fall accidents are matters that must be taken very seriously. These can result in serious injuries, expensive medical bills, and complications that could affect your life forever. When these accidents occur due to negligence, the laws of the United States protect the victim. A lawyer can help you to protect your rights, and try to obtain fair monetary compensation.
The owners and/or managers of places that the public is invited to are legally obligated to maintain certain safety criteria to prevent accidents. A slippery surface, a crack on the floor, a defective carpet or a liquid spill creates dangerous situations. These should be fixed immediately.
When those responsible for a shopping center, movie theater, park or government building, fail to take precautions and an accident occurs, the victim or victims could be financially compensated to cover medical bills, lost income, pain, suffering, and other damages arising from the accident.
Slip and fall checklist
What event qualifies as a slip and fall accident due to negligence?
To prepare a legal strategy to try and get fair monetary compensation to cover all your damages, a lawyer needs to check that your slip and fall accident was caused due to a hazardous condition on the property.
Dangerous conditions must constitute a risk for people on the property.
To verify that the owner had prior knowledge of the dangerous condition, the lawyer will have to check the following:
-The person in control of the property contributed to the dangerous conditions in some way or another.
-The person in control of the property knew about these conditions and was negligent in not repairing them.
-The condition existed for a period of time long enough for the person in control of the property to discover and correct.
For an attorney to hold an owner or manager responsible for an accident, it must be demonstrated that their negligence created the danger in question. In many cases, a lawyer may be able to prove negligence. They generally do it by demonstrating that the defendant violated a relevant regulation, such as a building code.
Was this an oversight of yours?
Before taking legal action against the owners or managers of a place, we must ensure that the affected person did not cause the accident and that the cause of the accident was negligence on the part of the managers or owners of the property.
These are the questions we must ask ourselves first:
-Was there any warning, or sign that made evident that the place presented a dangerous condition?
-Would any person have noticed the danger and avoided it, or be more careful so as not to slip or trip?
-Were you distracted by something, and stopped paying attention to where you were going?
-Were you jumping, running or acting recklessly and that made the fall or stumble more likely?
-Did you have a legitimate reason to be in that area? Was this legitimate reason something the manager could’ve anticipated?
You don’t need to prove that you were careful. You should take into account what happened and explain it clearly. This way an attorney can better assess whether there was negligence by the managers or owners, or not.
Ways to show the property owner was responsible
-The owner/manager of the place or one of its employees caused the spill, obstacle, or any other dangerous condition.
-They were aware of the existence of a dangerous situation and did not take the necessary measures to fix the problem.
-The site owner or an employee should have known that there was a dangerous condition.
A negligence lawsuit takes previous precautions into account. The lawsuit seeks to establish that the procedure followed by the responsible person did not follow reasonable safety protocols and that the accident could have been prevented if other measures had been taken.
The court or a jury will decide who is to blame after assessing whether the actions taken by the owner or person in charge were reasonable or not.
Some questions that the court or a jury will try to answer based on the evidence and witness statements of the incident are:
-If the accident occurred because you tripped or slipped due to an object placed or left on the ground, was there a valid reason for such an object to be there?
-If you slipped when passing through a slippery area or tripped due to an uneven surface.
-Were the dangerous conditions there long enough for the owner to be aware about them?
-Does the owner of the place have a procedure to examine, clean or repair problems in their facilities? If so, can the owner prove that this maintenance was done frequently?
-Is there a safer place where the object that caused the accident could have been located? Or could it have been located safely without causing a major inconvenience or expense to the owner or manager of the property?
-Could placing a warning sign have prevented the accident?
-If there was a valid reason to place the object in the dangerous place, but that reason no longer applies, could it have been removed or covered in some way?
-Did poor lighting contribute to the accident?
If the answer is yes to any of these questions, and there is enough evidence, it is very possible to obtain compensation for the damages you suffered.
If you or your loved one suffered a slip and fall accident and you believe it was caused by negligence, contact our experienced attorneys at 832-481-3427. Get in touch with us immediately so we can evaluate your case for free. We are available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. You can also fill out a form by clicking here.
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