Generally speaking, a “slip and fall” claim falls under a broad category of “premises liability” cases where a property owner may be held financially responsible for injuries occurring on his or her property. The term “slip and fall accident” is used in personal injury law to describe a group of cases where a person slips, trips, or falls on someone else’s property.
Dangerous or hidden conditions are the most common causes of slip and fall injuries. Among the most common causes are defective stairways, uneven ground surfaces, faulty carpeting, wet floors, potholes, insufficient lighting and cracked cement are just a few of the common dangerous conditions that lead to slip and fall accidents.
On one hand, Florida courts recognize that property owners are responsible for keeping their property in a reasonably safe condition, especially for known and invited guests, such as shoppers who enter a store for the purpose of purchasing products or services. On the other hand, sometimes people just fall, and no reasonable precaution on the part of the property owner could have prevented the accident.
There are three common types of slip and fall cases in which courts frequently find that the property owner is legally responsible for the injury that occurred on his or her property. First, courts do not vacillate to find a property owner liable when he or she actually created the dangerous condition that caused the slip and fall incident. Second, even if the owner did not create the dangerous condition, he could still be held liable if he knew about the dangerous condition and negligently failed to repair it. Finally, a property owner may be held liable for the injury even if he or she did not know about the dangerous condition, if in the exercise of reasonable care, he should have discovered it and repaired it before the incident causing the injury.
If you or a loved one has been injured while on someone else’s property, be it a slip and fall or any other incident, the experienced Law offices of Jorge L. Flores, P.A., may be able to help. We will aggressively pursue your claim to obtain the maximum compensation available under the law.