Understanding Premises Liability Fault
Brian O Sutter
Personal Injury
Every day, accidents take place throughout Florida. While the majority of accidents are on Florida’s roads, premises liability related accidents are very common as well. These are the accidents often referred to as ‘slip and fall’ injuries by the general public.
Essentially, if you are injured due to a slip, trip, fall, or other type of injury that occurs on someone else’s property, there is a chance that you may have the grounds to seek out financial compensation to help pay for your injuries. The reasons to do so are obvious – medical costs and time away from work mean that you have a large financial burden on your shoulders after many accidents, and overcoming this financial burden is something that you shouldn’t have to do alone if you weren’t to blame.
But while seeking compensation for injuries is important, it’s also vital that you remember that you actually have to prove that the other party was to blame for the accident and the injuries that you sustained as a result of it.
Under Florida law, there are a few basic things that you’ll need to understand in order to know what your options are and whether or not your premises liability claim is even valid. Talking to an accident lawyer is obviously important and will help you know exactly what steps you can take, but understanding a few basics is important as well. Here are some key points to understand.
- What Caused The Accident? – Specifically, were there unsafe conditions in place on the property? If a property owner is to be held liable for your injuries, it must be shown that unsafe or hazardous conditions led to the accident. Just because you tripped over your own feet or got dizzy doesn’t mean that they’re held responsible. Unsafe factors may include things like wet floors, poor railing, damaged walkways, and more.
- Did The Property Owner Know About The Problem? – You can’t hold someone responsible for an injury if they didn’t know about the issue that caused it. For example, if a spill occurs in a store’s cleaning product aisle and you slip on the wet floor a couple of minutes later, it’s not the fault of the store owner. But if they knew about a damaged stair railing for weeks and never bothered fixing it, and that railing led to your injuries, then you may have the grounds to seek compensation. It’s all dependent on what they knew.
- Were Warnings Present – Sometimes it takes time to clean up spills or correct unsafe conditions. If a property manager or owner at least takes the time to warn the public about the unsafe condition, they’ve done their due diligence to help prevent injuries. Cordoning off an area or putting up warning signs is often enough to prevent you from seeking compensation.
- Were Inherent Risks Obvious? – For example, if you’re at a pool, any reasonable person should expect the floor around the pool to be wet and potentially slippery. If you’re in a situation where any reasonable person would be aware of risks, then the property owner may not be held liable for injuries coming about as a result of those risks – you’ve taken on that responsibility yourself.