Slip And Fall Cases: 101

When you leave your house, there is the potential for an accident everywhere. You risk your life every time you get in the car and drive to your destination. What is more dangerous is that you could slip and fall anywhere you go. It is more dangerous when it has been raining or snowing. Most companies or property owners have security procedures put in place to keep us all safe but sometimes this doesn’t work. A person can place all the security cameras or railings around the premises and you can still get hurt. This is why there are slip and fall laws holding the property owner accountable for your injury.

Were they negligent?

This is a very important question to ask yourself before you threaten to take the property owner to court for a slip and fall case. Did the owner knowingly let their patrons walk up icy, snow covered steps? Or did you trip over your own shoe on their perfectly straight and manicured steps. The reason this is important to ask is because you will have to prove without a shadow of a doubt that the property owner was negligent. They have to deliberately not take action when they see potential danger whether it is ice on the steps or a banana peel that another patron dropped a short time before you got there.

Proving Fault

As attorneys we know that when it comes to money, people will do and say whatever they need to not pay up. The typical defense property owners use is that any reasonable person would have seen the ice or the banana peel and made the choice to use caution or walk around it. Our job is to prove that you did not have this option. That you didn’t notice the peel or that you only had the one door to enter and no matter how much caution was used, you still fell and hurt yourself. The most important thing to prove in court is if the property owner could have prevented the accident in the first place. It may be obvious, but sometimes it’s not black and white. The ice on the stairs scenario is clear. The owner definitely could have done something to prevent the accident before patrons started coming. The banana peel scenario is not so clear. How long was that peel there? It could have been there for days or it could have been dropped by the patron that walked in before you. Unless there are security cameras around, proving fault will be extremely hard. That’s where the personal injury lawyers at Rice McGowan come in.

At Rice McGowan, we believe in getting you every dime that you deserve. We will dedicate ourselves to finding evidence to prove that the property owners fault and not your own as many lawyers will have you believe. You are entitled to monetary compensation for your injury and we want to help you get what you need.