Slip and fall cases are a part of premises-related personal injuries. Tripping or slipping and falling is something all of us would have experienced at some point of time or the other in our lives. At times such accidents might turn out to be more serious resulting in a severe personal injury. A personal injury lawsuit may be filed if this slip and fall injury is caused by the negligence of someone else. If the owner or occupier of the property has been negligent by not removing dangers in front of you even though he had the ability and knowledge to do so, or if he failed to alert you it then you can file a personal injury lawsuit against him.
Slip and Fall Injuries are Controlled by the Basic Rule of Negligence
Slip and fall injuries are a subset of personal injuries law. State law applies to all such cases except if the accident occurs on federal government property. Be it a stumble, trip, twist, or any other movement experienced by the victim in an unsafe underfoot condition. There could be direct or indirect causes for such slip and fall injuries. Uneven flooring, potholes, cracked sidewalks, spilled food or liquids, broken tiles or ice and snow could be the direct causes while dim lighting, missing handrails and other such causes could be the indirect reasons. Any sort of negligence or oversight on the part of the owner can be said to be the cause of slip and fall injuries.
Steps to Determine Liability for Slip and Fall Injuries
Determining liability or filing a claim for injuries caused by a slip and fall accident may not always be the easiest thing to do. The property owner may not always be liable for someone else’s injury on their property; especially if the cause of the fall was an expected one or if the person could have easily avoided it. Even slip and fall injury liability is not something that can be definitively ascertained, you can actually file a case and recover damages if the property owner is indeed responsible for your injury. This is only possible if you have a well experienced personal injury attorney at hand. Your lawyer will help prove one or more of the following points in order to determine liability:
- The employee of the owner or the property owner himself must have caused a dangerous surface condition.
- The employee or the owner knew about the hazardous surface condition and still did not fix it or warn you of the impeding danger.
- If the premises was normally maintained well then the danger could have been discovered earlier and fixed.
What needs to be kept in mind is that the plaintiff (injured person) needs to prove that the defendant’s (property owner) negligence was a contributing factor to his personal injuries and that the damage incurred should have been easily foreseen by the defendant. Many a time the plaintiff’s case gets derailed even if initially the case was in their favor. This could happen if the defendant uses ‘comparative fault’ as a factor in his favor. This means that the plaintiff was equally negligent and could have avoided the accident if they were careful enough. To avoid any pitfalls in your case you should hire Rosenberg, Minc, Falkoff, & Wolff LLP at 212-344-1000who know the premises injuries or slip and fall injury laws well. We are not paid until you are paid. The first meeting is free. We know what a winning case looks like. We have won lots of money for past clients, you can too be a part of this winning list.
