Premises Liability
I am Greg Coffey of Friedman Law Offices in Lincoln, Nebraska. Thanks for visiting our blog.
We regularly get calls from people who have been hurt on someone else’s property and are hoping to recover for the injuries that they have received. We refer to these cases as “premises liability” cases, otherwise known as trip and fall or slip and fall cases. Unfortunately, while these are very common kinds of injuries, it is very difficult for someone to recover in a premises liability case. A lot of people are under the impression that if you are injured while you are on someone else’s property that they are automatically responsible for your injuries and, unfortunately, this simply isn’t the case.
The law sets up a very high standard for what an injured person has to prove in order to win a premises liability claim. First of all, you have to prove that the owner or occupier of the property either created the condition or knew of the condition or, that by the exercise of reasonable care, they would have discovered the condition.
Oftentimes, we have people call us who have slipped or fallen on something while at a store and they simply aren’t sure what they slipped on. If that’s the case, it would be impossible to prove that the landowner should reasonably have been able to discover the condition before you were hurt in order to fix the condition or at least warn you about it. The second thing that you have to prove is that the owner or occupier knew or should have known that this condition represented an unreasonable risk of harm to someone lawfully on the premises. And the third thing that you have to prove is that the owner or occupier either knew or should have known that you would fail to recognize the danger or wouldn’t be able to protect yourself from it. This is where these cases become difficult because the more evidence you put forth to prove that the condition was so obvious that the owner should have known about it, the more difficult it is for you to prove the third element which is that the owner should have known you would either fail to recognize the danger or fail to protect yourself from it. In other words, the defendant will make the argument that if the condition was that obvious, then why didn’t you see it?
If you have any questions, call Friedman Law Offices at 800-876-1093. There is never a charge to find out if we can help you (find out if you have a case). Feel free to leave a comment here on our blog, and use the share button if you know someone who might benefit from this information. Thanks for logging in.