What is a "Slip and Fall" Case?
Wet floors in a supermarket, icy sidewalks and faulty porch steps. These are all things that can cause us to lose our balance, slip, trip and even fall. When these conditions are caused by a business owner, property owner or person occupying a property, they could become the legal basis for a "slip and fall" case.
A slip and fall case is the common name for a cause of action under the legal terminology, "premises liability." Basically, a premises liability claim arises if you get injured by a dangerous condition on someone else's property. However, the cause of action only arises if the property owner or occupier is legally responsible or negligent. To establish negligence under Pennsylvania law, you must prove that someone, such as a business owner, owed you a duty of care or safety and that they breached that duty by creating a "hazardous condition" that caused you to suffer damages while you were lawfully on their property. If you can prove negligence, you may be entitled to monetary damages such as medical bills, lost wages, future lost wages and pain and suffering.
Is a property owner liable for all slip and/or falls that happen on his or her property? The answer to that question is generally, "no," but it truly depends on a number of factors and varies on a case-to-case basis. Generally speaking, the accurate answer to this question often starts by looking at you, the injured person. First, under Pennsylvania law, a property owner or occupier only owes a duty of care or safety to certain persons. The law categorizes you as a "trespasser," "invitee" or "business invitee" when you are on someone else's property. Your legal status on the property dictates the level of care or duty of inspection the property owner owes you. For example, if you are a trespasser on someone's property, the owner really doesn't have to protect you. Rather, he or she must only has refrain from willfully injuring you. This of course makes sense, because if you are a trespasser, the owner doesn't know you are on his or her property and should not be expected to keep you safe. If you are an invitee or business invitee, however, the law requires that the owner keep you safe from dangerous conditions he knows of or should know of that are not open and obvious. Of course, as a business invitee, for example a guest at a restaurant or a customer in a retail store, the owner has a heightened duty of inspection of his or her property. This is logical because if a business owner invites you onto his property intending to profit from you, he or she should do everything possible to keep you safe. As you may have figured out then, what the law really imposes upon a property owner, is a duty to inspect the property for dangerous conditions that could hurt others.
As alluded to earlier, sometimes, true "accidents" do happen, i.e., slips or falls that occur despite the fact that the property owner has inspected the property and has taken steps to make it safe. If you fall or slip on a legally safe condition, you may not have a claim. That's why the law requires us to also look at the injured person's actions in the slip and fall to see if the fall could have been avoided. For example, if you see a grape fall off a display at a supermarket and you step on it and hurt yourself, the property owner is probably not at fault. This is true for two reasons. One, the property owner did not know or couldn't be expected to know of the dangerous condition and two, you knew of the potential hazard and decided to proceed anyway! This scenario is known as both an "open and obvious condition" and "assumption of the risk." You see, in Pennsylvania we use a comparative negligence standard to determine if an injured person can recover damages from one purported to have been negligent. Under our legal system, if the injured person's actions contributed to the slip, trip or fall, a jury or judge must compare this to the property owner's negligence. If the injured person is found to have been more than 50% at fault for the incident, then that person's "contributory negligence" prevents his or her recovery from the property owner.
As you can see, the law surrounding a slip and fall case is very complicated. Therefore, if you or a loved one has fallen or slipped on someone else's property, it is important that you call an experienced slip and fall lawyer immediately. As a Pennsylvania premises liability attorney, I usually see serious injuries in these claims, including concussions and brain injuries, spinal injuries and fractures of arms, legs and hips. Those injuries almost always require long stays in the hospital, followed by surgery and physical rehabilitation. Often, victims of serious slip and falls cannot work for extended periods of time because of their injuries, usually suffering huge financial losses. That being said, if you have a claim against a property owner in a slip and fall case, the settlement or jury verdict obtained can often be substantial. However, proving that the property or business owner is liable is not always easy. As an experienced premises liability lawyer, I can help you investigate the cause of the fall, hire experts to document and photograph the accident scene and interview all possible witnesses. I can thoroughly prepare your case and help maximize your monetary recover from the insurance company for the person who caused your fall.
If you or a loved one has been injured on someone else's property, get medical attention immediately, but also have someone photograph the area of the fall and collect the contact information of all possible witnesses. As soon as possible after the fall, call me for a free consultation about your case. At Colgan Marzzacco, every client matters and I will take the time to answer all of your questions..