Is It Possible To Sue For Injury After A Hurricane?
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
Florida has recently experienced a major storm event, and this means that some parts of the state may take years to fully recover from the damage done. Unfortunately for the Southwest Florida area, hurricane Irma went through a major portion of our region at high strength, and the result has been floods, damaged homes, and knocked out electrical power.It has also meant injuries, and, unfortunately, even a few deaths occurred around the state. And while there is no doubt that a hurricane raging through an area falls under the category “act of God” in terms of damage and insurance claims, this also brings with it some questions. If you’re injured during a hurricane, and another person’s negligence is, in some way, involved, would you be able to go to court to pursue a personal injury case with a personal injury lawyer?
Context Is Always Important
Of course, when we’re talking a rare meteorological event such as Hurricane Irma, there is very little that a person can do to prepare for any and all eventualities that may arise from such crisis. For example, if winds are sufficiently strong enough to do so, even buildings that have been built to withstand category 4 storm conditions may not endure sustained category 5 storm conditions. In such a case, should portions of a building get swept up into the vortex of a hurricane, and those same gale force winds transport that piece of miles to randomly injure someone in their home, trying to weather out the storm, there’s very little legal recourse.
In this case, this is pretty much the definition of an “act of God.” No one could have predicted that someone else’s property, vehicle or other belonging miles away from you, would somehow injure you. The exceptional force of a storm, and the sheer randomness and unpredictability such a weather even brings makes it impossible to directly hold someone else accountable.
On the other hand, there are situations which are completely preventable, even in hurricane conditions, if someone had taken the time to exercise their legal responsibilities. In some cases, it may be a situation where premises liability has occurred, and a property owner is at fault. In other instances, it may be a case of negligence on the road. Whatever the case, it is not always the fault of a hurricane—and therefore no one—when an injury occurs.
A Storm Is No Excuse
One of the most obvious examples of negligence at work is if you have a neighbor with a tree on their property that has been obviously dead for quite some time. Dead trees slowly erode, and while this is happening, any number of potential hazards are created, such as falling branches, or even the trunk of the tree splitting and causing it to topple onto a person or other property. Some people, either as a result of thriftiness and being unwilling to spend the money, or because of sheer apathy, may do nothing about removing an obvious risk.
This means that when a weather event such as a hurricane enters your neighborhood, the high chances of that neglected dead tree turning into a hazard jump up exponentially. If you now suffer an injury as a result of that tree, this is the direct result of that tree’s owner having been aware of its potential danger for quite some time and still refusing to do anything about it, even when an extraordinary meteorological phenomenon increases the risk even more.
Renter’s Rights
The same is true if you are living in a building where you rent your home. Landlords and other property owners have a legal obligation to ensure a certain minimum amount of structural safety is compliant with state law. If an owner repeatedly ignores that responsibility, and the neglect results in tenants getting injured, this negligence must be answered for as a personal injury case in court.
If a landlord or building owner is aware of structural problems with a building that may pose a danger, they need to address this. If you, as a tenant, are aware of these problems and repeatedly voice your concerns to the landlord, only to have those warnings ignored, make note of it. Should something like a hurricane occur which dramatically increases the chances of that structural flaw—such as a poor foundation—causing an injury, you have every right to take this incident and bring it to the attention of a personal injury lawyer.
While it’s true that storms cause a lot of damage that no one can be held responsible for, this does not apply to clear hazards that everyone can see, that would only be made worse in storm conditions. If you sustained an injury during a hurricane as a direct result of negligence from someone else, seek legal aid.