Slip and fall personal injury cases can be some of the most challenging cases to prove.
Any number of factors can contribute to a slip and fall, including, but not limited to:
- Poor eyesight
- Not paying attention to where you are walking
- Poor motor control or an inability to lift your foot high enough to clear an object
- Dangerous conditions
- Uneven pavement
- Wet floors
- Cluttered areas
- Lack of warning signs
- Poorly maintained property
As you can see, some of these factors may be conditions occurring on the property that are the property owner’s responsibility. Others reside with the individual who falls. This combination of factors makes proving a slip-and-fall case challenging because where the fault lies is not always clear. Thus, the specific facts of each slip and fall will determine who wins and who loses.
For example, if you are shopping in a store and you slip and fall, whether you have a viable case or not will depend on the facts. So, if the facts of your case are that you fell because you were running and you tripped over your untied shoelaces, you probably won’t have a case. On the other hand, if you slipped and fell because there was a puddle of water on the floor that the store staff were aware of but had not put any warnings in place and had not cleaned up, then the outcome of your case will be very different. Because these cases are so heavily fact-dependent, you should always consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer near you.
Factors to Consider for a Slip and Fall Case
Any personal injury case involving a slip and fall that occurs anywhere other than the workplace will involve premises liability concepts. To win your case, then, you will need to prove that the defendant property owner was negligent.
The four essential elements you will need to prove are:
- Duty
- Breach
- Causation
- Damages
In Florida, property owners (and occupiers, i.e., tenants) are responsible for maintaining their property in a reasonably safe condition, free from any dangerous or hazardous conditions. If the property owner fails to do this and someone is injured as a result (whether it is due to a fall or some other condition like a dog bite), then the property owner may be held liable for that person’s injuries.
But before you can conclude that you will win your case just because you fell on someone’s property and were injured, you need to consider the legal parameters of each necessary element of your cause of action.
Your Status Upon Entering the Property
For example, the “duty” element isn’t quite so straightforward as you might think. Despite the fact that, as a general rule, all property owners must keep their property in a reasonably safe condition, whether you can prove that the property owner owed you a duty depends, not on the condition of the property, but on your status when you entered the property.
There are 3 primary categories that define people who enter onto another’s property. They are:
- Invitee
- Licensee
- Trespasser
Which category you fall into (no pun intended) determines the property owner’s duty of care. The highest duty of care is owed to “invitees” or “business invitees” (for example, customers in a store) and the least duty of care is owed to trespassers. A property owner’s duty varies with each category. Thus, what must be proven to hold a property owner responsible for an individual’s injuries also varies according to that person’s status.
For example, if a person is injured in a store, as an invitee, the store will owe him the highest duty of care. Thus, the store will be required to keep the property in a reasonably safe condition and to fix or warn of any dangers that the store knew or should have known existed and which its customers could not have discovered for themselves.
This means that a plaintiff must prove not only that a dangerous condition existed and that the store knew about it but did not warn about it or fix it, but that he (the injured customer) could not have discovered it himself.
In addition, if our injured customer slipped on a substance in the store, he will need to prove that the store had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition.
Proving each element of a premises liability case can be very difficult. Hiring an experienced personal injury lawyer to help you is one of the smartest things you can do.
More Factors to Consider
Time Limits and Seeking Medical Care
In addition to establishing the basic elements of your case and gathering all the necessary evidence you need to prove your case, there are some other factors you should consider if you are injured in a slip and fall.
Chief among them is seeking medical care.
What you need to consider is the fact that when you pursue a personal injury claim, your injuries are central to your case. In other words, a major part of your case will concern the extent of your injuries. Therefore, it is important not to wait too long before seeking medical treatment.
Why?
Because if you wait too long, you may not be able to receive the compensation you deserve for your full injuries. This is because either by the time you do get to the doctor you have already begun to heal, so your injuries will not be as severe as they were had you gone immediately, or because the judge and jury will assume you really couldn’t have been all that injured or you would have sought medical care far sooner.
Unlike your case overall, which has a legal time limit imposed on it —the statute of limitations —there is no official time limit put on when you should seek medical care. But sooner is always better. The sooner you seek medical treatment for your injuries, the more accurate your medical evidence will be concerning the full extent of your injuries.
How much you may have contributed to your own injuries.
As mentioned above, slip and fall cases typically involve some aspect of fault on both sides.
For injured plaintiffs, it is important to consider the extent to which your behavior may have contributed to or even caused the fall. In the example above, we mentioned that a fall could have been caused entirely because the person was running with untied shoelaces. Even if the facts of your case are not that extreme, you must consider factors such as whether you were actually paying attention at the time. Many falls happen simply because people are distracted – for example, they are looking at their phones while walking.
The degree to which you contributed to your accident can either reduce your recovery or can prevent you from recovering anything at all, so always consult with an experienced personal injury attorney about the facts of your case.
On March 24, 2023, Florida reformed its tort laws from a “pure comparative negligence” to a “modified comparative negligence” standard. Under this new standard, if you were 50% or more at-fault for your injuries, you cannot recover anything at all.
To be clear, that does not mean you cannot recover for your injuries. You can —but only if you were less than 50% at-fault for causing them.
There are many factors to consider if you are injured on someone else’s property because of their negligence. So please consult with an experienced personal injury lawyer near you to get the best understanding of your individual situation.
Slip and Fall Attorneys in Florida
Our attorneys are here to right wrongs and help injured individuals obtain the legal redress and compensation they deserve. Contact us here or call our firm at 777-JOHN. We serve clients throughout Florida. Our main office is in Orange Park, but we have consulting offices in Palatka, Middleburg, Keystone, Starke, Gainesville, and Ocala.
