What Is Negligence In Premises Liability?
Corbin Sutter
Premises Liability
It's not unusual to read, hear, or watch on the news that someone is suing the owners or managers of a property because of an injury that happened on that property. Injuries that occur on someone else's property are, if it is the owners' fault, illegal, though not considered criminal acts.This is where civil courts step in, allowing victims to seek financial compensation instead of punishing those responsible with jail sentences. In other words, when civil laws are broken, the people at fault must literally pay for their crimes, or, if not them personally, the insurance company that works for them.
This happens when negligence comes into play, but what is negligence, and how does it work in a court of law?
The Basics Of Premises Liability
For anyone that owns property, whether this is a private residence like a house, or a commercial property, such as a shopping mall, it's not enough to just maintain that property. Owners also have a responsibility to visitors and employees that is called "duty of care." Duty of care means that someone who owns a property—or the management the owner hires—must exercise a reasonable amount of precaution to ensure a safe environment for people on that property.
For homeowners, for example, this may mean ensuring that an aggressive dog is kept restrained and away from visitors, especially children. For commercial property, this means a wide range of things depending on the business, such as maintaining amusement rides for safe operation or making sure cracks in stairs are repaired to prevent tripping.
How Negligence Works
Negligence is the legal term for carelessness, laziness, or, in some cases, outright maliciousness. It means that in some capacity, the owner/manager of a property has failed the "duty of care" responsibility and has allowed an injury to occur on the property that was entirely preventable.
This is a big difference from injuries that the property owners can't be liable for or even predicted. The owners of a golf course, for example, can't be held responsible if someone decided to ignore all warnings, play a few rounds in the middle of a severe lightning storm, and get struck. There is no way in that situation; the golf course owners could have prevented that incident without affecting a customer's rights.
On the other hand, if a child is left unsupervised beside a swimming pool and then drowns as a result, that was easily preventable and was the responsibility of a homeowner. Children, especially young children that can't swim, should never be left unattended at a swimming pool; it costs no money or requires any exceptional measures to supervise them.
Negligence as the basis of premises liability falls into two categories:
• The property failed to address a danger.
This is the most common form of negligence. It means that the property owner or manager may have been aware that some aspect of the property created a risk to employees or visitors but decided not to do anything about it. Usually, this is because of factors such as thinking it is too expensive or time-consuming to address the problem, such as crooked stairs that might cause someone to trip, or a burnt-out light bulb in a windowless stairwell, meaning people using those stairs are doing so in pitch black conditions.
▪ The property caused the danger
In more extreme cases, the injury may directly result from the property owners or their management actually creating dangerous conditions. An amusement park, for example, may find its most popular attraction requires repair. Rather than take the ride offline for repair and maintenance, they silence the employees making the statements, and bury any documentation, claiming the ride is acceptable to operate. Should injuries occur, this is a direct result of their deliberate attempt to hide a danger they knew was there for the sake of higher daily revenues.
Getting Proof
Of course, going to court for premises liability rides on one overriding idea; you have proof of the negligence. Depending on the situation, this can be very easy or very challenging to prove in court based on whatever evidence you can provide.
Video footage, for example, is always good evidence when it is available. If a grocery store, for example, leaves spilled juice on a floor for hours, and someone slips and falls on it, the security footage showing the uncleaned mess for hours is convincing proof that a property manager had plenty of time to eliminate the risk, but didn't.
Another factor, however, is also proving that you did not, in some way, bring the accident down upon yourself. A child attacked by a dog is one thing. An adult attacked by a dog only after hitting it is entirely different and does not fall under negligence.
If you've been the victim of a personal injury due to premises liability, we can help. Talk to attorneys for slips and falls and get the advice you need.