Winning Slip and Fall Injury Claims: What You Need to Know

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Accidents on properties you do not own can happen and when they do, you might be wondering what legal rights you have and whether you can file and win a slip and fall injury claim. While you are within your rights to file such a claim, you will need to prove negligence which means you will have to prove that another individual, usually the owner of the property, is responsible for the injury you sustained.

Theories of Liability

To hold another person liable and to prove that they are responsible for your accident you need to prove that someone failed to take care of a dangerous situation or prove that they caused the conditions that led to your injuries. In the former case, it might be an open manhole or uneven stairs. In the latter, you might need to prove things like someone failing to move an obstacle that caused the fall.

Proving Liability and Negligence

While it is impossible to know what someone thought about a dangerous situation, there are still ways that you can prove their negligence and liability. The most important thing to prove is that they failed to act responsibly and their irresponsibility led to your injuries.

A common way you can prove that they acted negligently is to consider whether the dangerous situation has existed long enough that the party responsible would have had time to rectify it. Another way to prove negligence is to consider whether the property owner routinely checks their property for hazards and if they do, what actions were taken after noting the dangerous situation.

Another factor that proves negligence is the lack of signage around the hazard. If there is a reasonable explanation why the hazard existed, the property owners should have put signage around it to indicate danger or limited access to that section of their property. Lastly, you want to consider whether limited visibility usually caused by poor lighting played a role in your fall.

Proving You Did Not Cause the Accident

In slip and fall cases, the person you deem responsible, their lawyer, or the insurance company will want to put all the blame on you. If there is any doubt about your conduct before the accident, you may get limited compensation or no compensation at all.

For example, if you were texting and fell into a manhole, winning an injury claim becomes impossible. You may also need to prove that you did not ignore any safety barriers placed around the hazard if there were any placed there.

Proving that your actions did not lead to a fall can be difficult. This is why you need a good lawyer to help you go through your actions and those of the person you deem responsible. Firms like Horst Shewmaker will help you prove that hazardous conditions and not your actions caused the fall. Additionally, Horst Shewmaker will help with the preservation of evidence to make your case even stronger.

Conclusion

If you have had an accident on someone else’s property, you might qualify for compensation. However, it is important to prove that someone else’s actions and not your own are responsible for the accident. If there is any doubt about this, you are likely to receive no compensation.

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