Those who slip and fall due to someone else’s negligent behavior can often sue for medical expenses, pain and suffering, and other damages resulting from the fall.
It’s not always clear whether negligence—a failure to take reasonable measures to protect someone else—is the cause of someone’s fall. A Bakersfield slip and fall lawyer can help you make that determination.
If your slip and fall results from another party’s negligence, an attorney can also lead your insurance claim or lawsuit if circumstances call for it. If you decide to sue a property owner or another liable party, your lawyer’s legal training and experience can be pivotal to your case’s odds of success.
Premises Liability Law Holds Property Owners Accountable for Accidents Like Yours
When someone slips and falls on a property, it’s a lawyer’s job to investigate the cause. While a property owner might claim that the person who fell is the one responsible for the fall, attorneys often find that property owners have endangered the victim through negligence.
Your premises liability lawyer will make the case that a property owner was negligent by:
- Establishing that the property owner owed you a duty of care: When someone has a duty of care, they must act reasonably. The property owner has a duty to protect anyone legally on their property.
- Using evidence to prove the property owner violated their duty of care: A property owner who does not urgently remove a slipping hazard (or fails in other ways) has acted in an unreasonable manner and, therefore, violated their duty of care.
- Tying the breach of duty of care to your fall: Your lawyer will rely on evidence to show that the property owner’s breach of duty of care led directly to you slipping and falling. They may create a clear timeline, present time-stamped video footage, and take other measures to link the breach of duty of care and your fall.
- Proving the damages resulting from the slip and fall: Finally, your premises liability lawyer will show how the fall harmed you. If a property owner caused your fall, they need to pay for your damages.
Property owners have rights. However, they don’t have the right to endanger others by neglecting known hazards on their property. Sometimes, a third party (other than the owner) caused your slip and fall, and your lawyer can hold that party liable for negligence.
Whether you were a pedestrian, shopper, visitor, or acting in any other capacity, your fall suggests the property owner exposed you to unacceptable risk. Demand justice by hiring a slip and fall accident lawyer.
Who Might File an Insurance Claim or Lawsuit After a Slip and Fall Accident?
No population is safe from slip and fall accidents.
Though some groups, like the visually impaired, are at a heightened risk when slipping hazards are present, those who may file an insurance claim or lawsuit after a slip and fall include:
- Employees
- Shoppers
- Pedestrians on public or private property
- Visitors to homes, apartments, and other residences
- Anyone else who encounters a slipping hazard while legally on a property
Employees who slip and fall while on the job can most likely file a workers’ compensation claim. However, there are also cases when an injured employee can sue those liable for a fall.
Potential Signs That a Property Owner Failed in Their Duty of Care
Your personal injury attorney is going to investigate the specific failures that led to you slipping, falling, and becoming injured (or losing a loved one).
Property owners increase the risk of a slip and fall accident when they:
- Do not regularly walk the property to identify potential slipping hazards
- Do not train employees about how to spot and address slipping hazards
- Do not emphasize to employees the importance of visitor safety, including the importance of protecting them from slipping and falling
- Fail to implement video cameras, lighting, and other resources known to decrease the likelihood of slips and falls
- Have flooring that poses an unacceptable risk of slip and fall accidents
- Do not clean up rain and other weather-related hazards
- Have uneven walkways, dilapidated stairs, or other flaws on the property that can cause a fall
Safety experts specializing in fall prevention note that property owners, employers, and other parties can reduce the risk of falls through their preventative actions. When a property owner fails to take such preventative measures, they are often committing negligence.
Property Owners Are Not Always the Liable Party in Slip and Fall Accident Cases
When someone slips and falls, a lawyer’s first instinct is typically to look at the property owner. Often, they find that the property owner did act negligently in causing the client’s fall.
However, there are cases where a property owner is not solely liable for a slip and fall accident or is not liable at all.
Consider a couple of examples to illustrate this point:
- A shopper enters a Target, and slips on a puddle leaking from a bottle of cleaning solution. A lawyer may find that the bottles used to store the cleaning solution have a design flaw. You might hold the bottle manufacturer liable, while Target could also share liability for failing to spot and clean up the slipping hazard.
- A person is leaving their friend’s condominium after a cocktail party. While walking to their car, they slip on a patch of ice in the parking lot. Rather than holding the individual condominium owner liable, the owner of the condo complex may bear liability for the slip and fall accident.
Each slip and fall accident warrants an investigation. Your lawyer will talk with witnesses, get your account of events, and weigh all other relevant information to determine who is liable for the cost of your slip and fall accident.
You Deserve Fair Compensation for the Effects of a Fall
The case your attorney builds will detail the many ways in which your slip and fall accident has changed your life for the worse. Some realities that many fall victims face include:
Injuries That Take a Long Time to Heal (or Won’t Ever Fully Heal)
Certain segments of the population, including the elderly, are especially vulnerable to falls and persistent injuries like fractures that do not heal in a normal manner.
Slow-healing injuries may:
- Keep the victim bedridden for a long period of time, as is often the case with those who break their hip during a fall
- Expose the fall victim to bedsores and other secondary health issues
- Increase the risk of infection
- Eventually contribute to the fall victim’s death
A person who suffers a long recovery period (or an indefinite recovery period) may also endure severe pain and suffering.
Loss of Physical Abilities
If your fall results in the temporary permanent loss of physical abilities, you deserve compensation reflecting this challenging reality.
Physical changes may:
- Prevent you from exercising as you normally do (which can have detrimental effects on your health)
- Make you less independent
- Significantly diminish your quality of life
Attorneys have ways to account for clients’ physical losses, including by increasing the value of pain and suffering.
The Potentially Devastating Effects of a Brain Injury
Brain injuries are associated with falls. These injuries can cause severe pain, cognitive problems, memory deficits, personality changes, and other difficult challenges for the victim.
If you or a loved one suffered a traumatic brain injury (TBI) during a slip and fall accident, look for an attorney who knows the unique symptoms of brain injuries.
Severe Professional Disruptions
The vast majority of those injured during a fall face a professional fallout.
Even if you have generous work benefits, any professional absence can cause:
- Lost income
- Lost career advancement opportunities, both immediately and in the long term
- Several other direct and indirect forms of professional and financial harm
Your lawyer will learn the details of your career and measure the impact of the slip and fall accident on your career.
The Harsh Reality of Being Disabled
When a fall causes a disabling injury (as can happen with a brain injury), the victim may:
- Never have the same personality they did before the injury
- Be unable to relate to others, socialize, or participate in romantic relationships like they did before the fall
- Endure significant, potentially permanent professional harm
- Need long-term caregiver services and rehabilitation
- Life an unrecognizable life when compared with the life they lived before the slip and fall
Slip and fall accident lawyers understand the complex and wide-ranging challenges that disabling injuries cause. Your lawyer can document and value any disabling injuries you or a loved one suffered.
The Loss of a Loved One
When someone loses their footing and downward momentum causes a violent collision with a solid surface, the result can be fatal. This is particularly true when the victim of the slip and fall accident hits their head.
If you have lost a loved one in circumstances related to a fall, you deserve the time and privacy to mourn. An attorney can lead a wrongful death lawsuit on behalf of you and other affected loved ones.
Damages in fall-related wrongful death cases can include:
- Funeral and burial expenses or cremation costs
- Loss of a spouse’s companionship (and any other non-economic damages that qualify as loss of consortium)
- Loss of the decedent’s income, household services, and other forms of financial support
- Pain and suffering
No case is too small or too daunting for a personal injury lawyer. Whether you’re steadily recovering from an injury, the accident permanently disabled you, or you are working through a loved one’s loss, allow a slip and fall accident lawyer to pursue the justice you deserve.
Your Lawyer Will Pinpoint and Document Your Fall-Related Damages—and Demand Fair Compensation for Them
Slip and fall accident lawyers listen to their clients. This allows them to gain a nuanced, detailed understanding of the many ways in which the fall harmed you. After gaining this understanding, your lawyer will need to crystallize your damages into specific categories, which may include:
Medical Costs
Fall-related medical expenses can result from:
- An ambulance trip from the scene of the fall
- Emergency services
- X-rays, CT scans, and other medical imaging services
- One or multiple surgeries, which may relate to fractures, brain injuries, or other serious injuries
- Medications
- Specialist visits
- Rehabilitation services
The details of your injuries and symptoms, as well as the severity of those injuries, will factor into the cost of care.
Pain and Suffering
Both victims of non-fatal falls and those affected by wrongful deaths experience pain and suffering.
Some specific examples of what pain and suffering can look like include:
- Grief
- Physical pain (including chronic pain)
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
- Anxiety
- Depression
- Sleep loss
- Lost quality of life
- Scarring and disfigurement
- Substance abuse issues related to the fall
Premises liability attorneys use one of two methods to calculate the cost of pain and suffering. If you do not hire a lawyer to calculate these non-economic damages accurately, you risk undervaluing or overvaluing them—outcomes that carry unique risks.
Professional Damages
Some common professional damages among victims of property owners’ negligence are:
- Lost income (also known as lost income)
- Diminished earning capacity
- Lost benefits, which can occur if the victim has to leave their job
- Permanent loss of earning power
- Lost bonuses, overtime opportunities, promotion opportunities, and potential job offers
Let a lawyer quickly document your damages.
Steps Lawyers Take to Get Justice for Slip and Fall Victims
Your attorney, their paralegals, and the experts they hire to help with your case will:
- Document negligence by a property owner or any other liable party
- Document damages resulting from the fall
- Value your case
- Negotiate a settlement on your behalf (and review offers with you)
Your premises liability lawyer can also file a lawsuit and go to trial, should you need them to.
Hire Your Premises Liability Attorney as Soon as You Can
Mickey Fine, slip and fall Attorney
Your lawyer will immediately take over your case, enabling you to focus on health and avoid questionable tactics from liable parties. Don’t wait to find and hire a qualified slip and fall accident lawyer, as they will need to secure evidence immediately and file any necessary lawsuit before the statute of limitations expires.