Trip and Fall: Key Evidence for the Personal Injury Victim

A trip and fall, as compared to a slip and fall, generally results from hazardous conditions on a property which were present for a long period of time. These conditions typically are found in the form of broken pavement, uneven asphalt, exposed piping/wiring and dilapidated stairwells. Such conditions rarely manifest themselves overnight, and as such, could have been easily identified would a landlord or property owner taken the time to conduct a routine inspection of the property. When a landlord, or person who controls the property fails to conduct routine inspections and maintenance, they may be considered negligent should someone become injured by a dangerous condition on that property (see Premises Liability). Invariably, the person who controls the property is the one who is best-equipped to inspect the property and then repair any conditions which would constitute an unreasonable risk of harm to a visitor. Understand, just because someone is injured on the property of another does not mean the owner of that property is automatically liable. The law does not impose liability on an owner if a victim is injured by a “trivial defect” on the property (an example of this is a raise in concrete/asphalt which is only about .75″ or shorter) or if the dangerous condition was “open and obvious” and thus should have been seen and avoided by the victim (such as a large crater in a parking lot which anyone could/should have seen before stepping into it). The law also protects owners when they properly warn visitors of dangerous conditions (this is why you always see the yellow caution signs in restaurants when someone is mopping). When a personal injury victim contacts our premises liability lawyer, we thoroughly investigate the accident scene and conditions to determine the extent of the owner’s liability and the extent of arguments we will use to show that our client was not at fault, but rather that liability falls on the owner. Even if the landowner/landlord hires a third party to conduct maintenance, repair and inspections of the property (and it’s actually the third party’s negligence that contributed to the hazardous condition), the landowner is still 100% responsible for the personal injury victim’s injuries because the law does not allow him to shield himself from liability by hiring someone else to do what he is legally responsible to do (see Non-Delegable Duty of Landlord/Property Owner [Trip/Slip and Fall Accident]). Some of the factors we investigate in determining the extent of liability include poor lighting, frequency of inspections, prior maintenance, proximity of a dangerous condition to another dangerous condition (a prime example of this is when a personal injury victim tripped over a dangerous condition because they were looking for oncoming nearby traffic and thus would not have been expected to have seen the condition over which they tripped), time of day of the accident, size of the condition, warning signs, etc. We have extensive experience in all forms of trip and fall cases and know how to maximize the value of your case if you have been the victim of a landlord/owner’s negligence.