Slip and fall accidents may arise from slippery floors which may not be easily noticeable or it may just be a slip in normal course of the day. The prevalence is such that, for the most part, you do not even leave the scene with serious wounds. As it is always understood, nobody can ever confidently predict the extent of an accident. Should you find yourself in a situation where you are badly injured because of someone else’s carelessness, you have to learn what to do after a slip and fall injury.

Proving Fault in Slip & Fall Accidents- Overview

The basic form of negligence, that is, premises liability cases are no exception to this rule. Negligence is the legal meaning of carelessness or failure to exercise that degree of care that is expected under the circumstances. It generally has four elements:

• Duty: The plaintiff in any of these cases must make it clear that the property owner owed him or her a duty of care not to cause harm to the plaintiff.
• Breach: The defendant should have committed the legal wrong by not making the premises safe.
• Causation: It means the plaintiff got injuries due to the defendant’s negligence and not for any other reason or the plaintiff’s own negligence.
• Damages: These are normally established through medical expenses and other forms of damages. Pain and suffering costs are seen most of the time as forms of compensation for damages in most negligence claims, including, premises liability.

It is impossible to tell when the owner of a property is legally liable for your damages in case of slip and fall. Every single case hinge on the question if the property owner was careful so that tripping or slipping was not probable. It also depends with the fact that you were negligent to notice or prevent the condition that led to the fall.

Responsible Parties

To ensure that a person is compensated for their slip and fall injury on somebody’s property, the injury must have been occasioned by the negligence of the property owner. Yes, as simple as this may seem, a considerable number of people never understand that some injuries are just an accident that could have been precipitated, if at all, by the person’s negligence. Once we get past the issue of eliminating personal carelessness or some other cause unrelated to premises liability, typical defendants will be:

• The property owner or landlord is the person in whose name the property is registered and he or she is fully responsible for the property and its tenants.
• In this case it is the tenant or the business person who has the authority in managing the premises.

Examples are homeowners, business owners/tenants in grocery stores, shopping malls and other related retail business premises. Just about every one of these businesses will have a policy of liability from an insurance entity. This may provide the insurance policy that is to pay for injury claims.

Commercial Property

It is a common experience that in slip and fall cases on commercial property there may be more than one person or legal entity liable for the victim’s injuries. These will include hotels, homeowners, Restaurants among others. The responsibilities of employers and the employees may also be divided in such establishments.
To be legally responsible for the injuries someone suffered from slipping or tripping and falling on someone else’s property, the defendant either:

• Most have made the cause of the spill, the worn or torn place where the slippery floor or the dangerous surfaces or items are located, to be close to the top of the floor.
• Of course one must have known that the surface they were on was dangerous but took no action about it.
• Probably one should have known of the dangerous surface because if a person in charge taking good care of the property then he would have seen it and either removed or repaired the surface.

Residential Property

In residential premises, landlords may also be legally responsible for compensating tenants or third party for slips and falls on the premises. To hold a landlord responsible for an injury, a tenant must show that:

• It is the landlord who have control over the condition that led to slip and fall.
• The condition could have been repaired, it was not unreasonably expensive or difficult to repair the condition.
• The likelihood was that a serious injury would occur in the absence of rectifying this problem; and
• This is due to the fact that the landlord did not exercise reasonable care towards preventing an accident which led to the tenant’s slip and fall injury.

Most of the defendants of residential class own stamps for homeowners’ insurance. Instead of directly suing the homeowners a slip and fall lawyer will first engage the insurance company on behalf of the victim.

Government Property

If you twist your ankle or some other joint walking across public sidewalks, those are properties owned by government. The same can be said with government structures. While suing the government is a very different process from suing private participants in an industry.
Whenever a slip and fall injury takes place in a property belonging to a local, state or federal government, the laws of the land will come into play. Namely, very strict notice provision and rather generous definitions of immunity can sometimes protect the government. A personal injury attorney will be quite aware of these formalities.

Get Professional Help

In case you or a close one have fallen and got injured while on someone else’s compound, you should consult on the possibility of filing a premises liability claim. To get the maximum amount of claim and to defend your legal interests one should consult with a lawyer.