Slip and Fall Accidents

By Elspeth Crawford

Slip and fall accidents are among the most common personal injury claims out there. They come in many varieties. A plaintiff might slip on a floor of a public business, trip over a toy in a residential home, stumble over a hole in the ground while walking outside, or more. Depending on the situation, the path to recovery can be different, and an attorney may be needed to help steer the case toward a satisfactory end.

What to do Immediately After a Slip-and-Fall Accident

The first thing to do after any accident, not just a slip-and-fall, is to get needed medical attention. Such accidents can break an arm, twist an ankle, or worse, and you don’t want to risk compounded the damage by not getting timely treatment.

Assuming you’re in the condition to do so, it’s extremely important to create a record of the accident while it’s still fresh in your mind. Write it down if you can. Take note of the sequence of events leading up to the accident, the names and contact information of any witnesses, and what anybody said before, during, and after the accident occurred. If possible, take pictures of the accident scene. If you fell in a public facility, like a convenience store, the facility may file a proprietary accident report, but it’s always prudent to create one of your own so your version of events is preserved for negotiations down the line.

Liability

Proving fault in any personal injury claim is a tricky, circumstance-specific business. When dealing with slip-and-fall cases, much comes down to where the accident happens. The dimensions of the owner’s responsibility differ depending on what kind of locale is at issue, so be sure to tell your lawyer not only how and why you fell, but also where.

• Residential Property. Owners of residential property can be held liable for slip-and-fall accidents, but they are granted the most leeway of any property owners. For an owner of residential property to be held liable for a slip-and-fall accident, the plaintiff must show that the owner neglected their duty to perform general maintenance on the property, including the repair or elimination of dangerous conditions which the property owner should have known.
• Residential Tenants. Landlords may be held liable to tenants or third parties for slip-and-fall accidents that happen on rental property. To hold them responsible, a tenant must show that a landlord had control over the condition that caused the slip and fall, that repairing the condition would not have been unreasonably expensive or difficult, that a serious injury was a foreseeable consequence of not fixing the condition, and that the landlord’s failure to take reasonable steps to avoid an accident caused the slip and fall.
• Commercial Property. Because they are open to the public, owners of commercial property are held to a relatively higher standard than are owners of residential property. In order to hold commercial owners liable for a slip-and-fall accident, plaintiffs must show that the owner either:
• 1) Caused the dangerous condition (spill, slick, misplaced item, or other dangerous surface) to be underfoot;
  
  
• 2) Knew of the dangerous surface but did nothing about it; or
  
  
• 3) Should have known of the dangerous surface because a “reasonable” person taking care of the property would have discovered and removed or repaired it.

• Workplace Property. If you slip and fall at work, you generally won’t be able to sue your employer. State-specific worker’s compensation laws should cover you in this circumstance.

When thinking about who’s at fault for a slip-and-fall accident, remember that there must be a responsible party whose negligence caused the injury. Most state laws take the plaintiff’s own negligence into account, so if you were partly or completely responsible for your own injury your chances of recovering decrease dramatically. If you’re in a convenience store and slip on a puddle of grease which the management failed to clean up, you have a good case, but if you’re in the same convenience store and trip over your own untied shoelaces, your case will likely go nowhere.

Damages

If you have a successful slip and fall case, you stand to recover the kinds of damages you would normally recover in any personal injury case. These include compensation for wages lost, medical bills paid, potential future medical expenses, and damages for pain and suffering caused.