Commonly as Houston personal injury lawyers, we understand that
If you slip and fall on someone else’s residential or commercial property, the homeowner may be liable for your injuries.
Who is Responsible For an Injury Resulting From a Slip and Fall Accident?
Countless individuals are hurt each year, some very seriously. When they slip or trip and fall on hazardous flooring, a flight of stairs, or a rough spot on the ground, often the property owner is responsible for the mishap, however in some cases she or he is not.
If you have been injured in a way that was no one else’s fault, think about that it is a regular part of living for things to fall on or to drip onto flooring or the ground, and for smooth surfaces to become irregular.
Likewise, some things put in the ground– drain grates, for example– serve a useful function there. So a property owner (or occupier) can not consistently be delegated to pick up or clean every slippery compound on a flooring.
Nor is a homeowner always responsible for someone slipping or tripping on something that most individuals anticipate or prevent. All of us have a duty to watch where we’re going.
However, property owners do require to be mindful in maintaining their homes. While there is no accurate method to determine when someone else is lawfully responsible for something on which you slip or trip, cases turn on whether the property owner was negligent and whether you were careless in not seeing or preventing your fall.
As an experienced personal injury attorney, here are some basic guidelines to help you decide whether another person was at fault for your slip or trip and fall injury.
Figuring Out Liability
To be lawfully responsible for the injuries you acquired with slipping or tripping and falling on another person’s residential or commercial property, among the following must hold true.
The owner of the properties or an employee needs to have caused the spill, used or torn area, or other slippery or hazardous surface area or item to be underfoot.
The owner of the properties or a staff member needs to have known of the hazardous surface area but did nothing about it.
The owner of the premises or an employee ought to have known of the hazardous surface since a “sensible” person looking after the residential or commercial property would have identified and removed or fixed it.
The 3rd circumstance is the most typical, however is likewise less well-defined than the first 2 because of those pesky words “must have known.” Liability in these cases is frequently concluded by sound judgment.
Judges and juries find out whether the owner or occupier of the home was vigilant by figuring out if the steps the owner or occupier required to keep the property safe were reasonable.
What Is “Reasonable”?
In determining a homeowner’s “reasonableness,” the law concentrates on whether the owner makes frequent and cautious efforts to keep the residential or commercial property safe and tidy.
Here are some initial concerns to ask your personal injury lawyer. Ask to determine whether a property or company owner may be liable for your slip or trip and fall injuries.
If you tripped over a torn, broken, or bulging location of carpet, flooring, or ground, or slipped on a wet or loose location, had the unsafe area existed long enough that the owner should have known about it?
Does the property owner have a routine procedure for taking a look at and cleaning or fixing the facilities? If so, what evidence does the owner have of this regular upkeep?
If you tripped over or slipped on an item someone had placed or left on the floor or ground, was there a good reason for the object to be there?
If there once had been a decent reason for the object to be there but that reason no longer exists, could the object have been eliminated or covered or otherwise made safe?
Was there a much safer place the item could have been located, or could it have been put in a safer way, without much greater trouble or expenditure to the property owner or operator?
Could a basic barrier have been produced or a caution been provided to prevent people from slipping or tripping?
Did bad or broken lighting add to the mishap?
If the explanations to several of these questions come out in your favor, you might have a good case to recover a settlement. However, you should still consider whether your own negligence included any substantial method to your mishap.
Your Own Recklessness
In almost every slip or trip and fall case, you need to decide whether your carelessness added to the accident. The rules of “comparative carelessness” measure your own reasonableness in going where you did, in the method you did, just before the accident took place.
There are some questions you ought to ask yourself about your own conduct:
- Did you have legitimate reasoning— a reason the owner should have expected– for being where the hazardous location was?
- Would a mindful person have noticed the hazardous spot and prevented it, or walked thoroughly enough not to slip or trip?
- Were there any caution or warning signs?
- Were you doing anything that sidetracked you from focusing on where you were going or were you running, jumping, or messing around in a manner that made falling more likely?
You don’t need to “prove” to an insurance coverage adjuster that you were cautious, in fact, it is best to hire an attorney before talking to an insurance adjuster so that your attorney can recover the settlement you deserve.
Call Us Today!
To find out more about how your carelessness will affect the result of your claim. You owe it to yourself to figure this out.
Our knowledgeable personal injury attorneys have handled numerous cases comparable to yours. Their know-how will assist you to determine whether the homeowners or property owners were negligent.