About Slip and Fall Accident Lawsuits - General Legal Information

Whether visiting a friend or neighbor, walking up to business entrance, or taking a stroll down the sidewalk, if you fall on another person’s property, you may be entitled to compensation for the resulting damages. The fall could be the result of an icy walkway, a misplaced obstacle, a faulty stairwell, or any number of other reasons, but if the cause can be traced back to negligence on the part of the property owner, then you will very likely find that you are entitled to compensation.

This is a section of law that often receives much criticism for the pure and simple fact that a property owner simply cannot keep every surface perfectly level and clean of debris at all times. However, there is common sense written into this area of law. It is recognized that a property owner should not be held accountable is a person could have or should have prevented their injury. Furthermore, careless actions on the part of the injured are surely not the responsibility of the property owner. But when a floor has just been mopped, it is proper and reasonable to assume that the owner would display a warning to those who may walk across that floor. Likewise, in colder climates during winter months, it is common practice for property owners to care for those walkways to ensure the safety of those who happen down them.

If you are the injured party in a slip and fall accident, then it would be wise to seek legal counsel who can assist you in determining liability. In order to prove that the owner was responsible, it must be obvious that he or she caused the obstacle or spill or did nothing to correct the hazard that resulted in the injury. Or, it would have to be determined that a reasonable person in the same situation would have found and corrected the problem. The last of these is the most difficult to prove, but also is the most common in these cases.

It can be assumed that the owner was not acting as a reasonable person if the object that was tripped or slipped on had no reason to be where it was, the obstacle had been there for long enough for the owner to have known about it, the owner fails to do regular maintenance to improve upon his property, or warning signs (“wet floor”) could have prevented the incident. There is also the matter of your own carelessness that may be disputed. Should you have been where you were, were you paying attention to where you were walking, did you overlook warning signs, were you wrongfully multi-tasking, or was a simple matter of clumsiness? Although it is not your responsibility to prove to a judge or insurance company that you were being “careful,” if it is determined that you were acting carelessly, then you may not be entitled to compensation.