Premises Liability Attorney Serving Tampa Bay
In Florida, different laws apply to individual business and property owners when it comes to premises liability cases.
Florida law requires most business and property owners to keep and maintain their property in a reasonably safe condition. Under most circumstances, negligence occurs when a dangerous or unsafe condition is allowed to exist on the property that results in an injury where the property owner either knew or should have known about the hazardous condition.
Injury cases we handle include:
Property owners are required to maintain their property to be a harmless and hazard-free space to prevent accidents from occurring. When an individual is lawfully walking on a businesses’ grounds, he or she is legally entitled to their safety. Unfortunately, some property owners fail to obey the laws to maintain a safe and hazard-free property. If you sustain injuries due to a slip, trip, or fall, it is essential to understand the natural order of places and spaces. First, it is indeed a normal part of living that things spill, get dropped, or that holes or defects exist.
Secondly, property owners cannot always be held responsible for a slip, trip, or fall injury. Still, the law provides that property owners do need to be careful in keeping up their property. If someone is legally on the property and he or she dies as a result of a fall caused by the property owner’s negligence, the decedent’s survivors may be able to file a wrongful death claim.
Sadly, there is no accurate way to determine if the property owner is legally responsible because each case is unique. The negligence claim, however, is based upon whether the property owner acted carefully in ensuring that there was no likelihood of someone slipping, tripping, or falling on the property. It also determines whether or not the injured party was careless in not seeing or avoiding the dangerous or hazardous condition.
Aware of the Danger
Through the exercise of due diligence, the property owner should be aware of any existing dangerous condition that could cause injury. Reasonable property owners exercise due care and persistence by maintaining the safety of their property. To avoid accidents, the property owner would have discovered the hazard, discarded it, or repaired it.
Causation and Failure
The owner or manager of the premises, or an agent, assistant, or employee, must have caused the spill, pothole, slippery, or dangerous substance or other defective condition. The owner or manager in charge of maintaining the premises knew or must have known that the critical condition existed that caused your injury, but did nothing to remove it, repair it or warn those lawfully on the premises that it was there.
Reasonability
Did the owner or manager of the property take the necessary steps to maintain a safe, defect-free, and hazard-free environment for people who were lawfully on the property? There is a significant burden of proof in this situation involving three simple words “should have known.” A judge or jury needs to apply common sense as to what constitutes “should have known” in this case. Many times, the question of negligence depends on whether the defendant acted “reasonably.”
- Were you unable to see defects at the scene of the accident due to inadequate lighting?
- Was there a safer place that the property owner could have or should have put any object that you slipped, tripped, or fell upon on the property?
- What was the purpose of the item that you slipped, tripped, or fell on that caused the accident? Did the object serve a functional purpose?
- Did the object that you slipped, tripped or fell on serve a purpose for any employees, assistants, managers, or owners at one point in time, but is now no longer necessary and caused your injury?
- Had the danger of a hole, a defective sidewalk, curb, a torn or bulging carpet, a broken floor tile, or wet floor existed long enough that, because of due care and diligence (and regular inspection), the owner should have fixed or removed the hazardous condition?
- If the dangerous condition could not be avoided, did the property owner, manager, or its agents, assistants or employees take the proper steps to warn those lawfully on the property that the hazardous and unsafe condition existed?
- Take several pictures of the dangerous condition from several angles. Be sure to get a photograph that shows where the hazardous condition existed. For example, if the concrete in a business parking lot is broken, take a broad enough picture to show the defect and the surrounding area.
- Get the correct legal name of the business property in which your accident occurred. For instance, if it happened in a grocery store parking lot, be sure to get the full name and address of the grocery store.
- Report the incident immediately to a manager, owner, employee, or someone on duty. Get a copy of the incident report and the name and position of the person to whom you spoke. If your incident occurred after hours, try to call the business phone number.
- Get the name and contact information of any incident witness or anyone who assisted you in getting up from your fall.
