Slips, trips and falls are one of the leading causes for reasons people end up in the emergency room, with almost 9 million visits annually. Tripping and hurting yourself around the house is one thing, but if you fall in a public building, in a business or on ice in a parking lot, is the business owner at-fault? In a slip & fall case, it's though to determine who's at-fault, unless you have skilled Kansas City personal injury attorneys by your side that are able to prove liability.
It’s part of everyday life for things to get spilled in grocery stores and items to fall off shelves or racks. A property owner can’t always be held responsible for not immediately cleaning everything spilled on a floor, or getting rid of every speck of ice in a parking lot.
How to Prove Liability Against a Property Owner
In order to prove liability against a property owner, one of the following three things must have happened:
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The owner or an employee must have caused the spill, or other slippery or dangerous surface.
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The owner or an employee must have known about the dangerous surface but done nothing about it.
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The owner or an employee must have known the surface was dangerous because any “reasonable person” would have discovered and fixed the dangerous surface.
A Recent Slip & Fall Case Result
A recent six-figure case won by Castle Law Office is a good example for this. Our Kansas City personal injury attorneys were able to prove that both the owner of a bar and employees knew that a particular staircase was dangerous, and the owner did nothing to fix it. In fact, several people had been injured on that staircase before our client was injured.
In order to win this kind of slip & fall case, we also must prove that your carelessness didn’t contribute to the accident. For instance, would a careful person have noticed the dangerous spot and avoided it? Were there any warning signs to watch your step? Were you doing anything (running, jumping, etc.) that made falling more likely?
In this client’s case, the stairway was not well lit, and there were no warning signs. As such, it was easier for our Kansas City personal injury attorneys to prove our case.
Contact the Kansas City Personal Injury Attorneys at Castle Law
If you’ve been injured and need help determining who's at-fault in a slip & fall case, and can possibly prove liability against the business owner, contact us online or call us today at 816-842-7100 to speak with our experienced and skilled Kansas City personal injury attorneys today!
