Posted in Blog Post on July 22, 2019
Every year, millions of people end up in hospitals because of serious fall accidents. Over one million of these incidents (12% of total falls) stem from slip-and-fall accidents specifically, according to the National Floor Safety Institute. If you recently became the victim of a slip-and-fall accident in San Diego, many questions may run through your mind. Asking the right ones, however, could help you better understand whether you have the right to file a claim against a property owner.
In California, the burden of proof on a plaintiff in a slip-and-fall case is somewhat strict. The number of false and fraudulent slip-and-fall accident claims over the years has led to many courtrooms dismissing lawsuits that do not have significant proof of negligence. In general, you or your attorney will have to prove that the property owner breached a duty of care owed to you and that this action or omission caused your fall.
It is not enough to prove that you fell on a slippery floor. To have grounds for a lawsuit, the slipperiness of the floor must have reached a level of unreasonableness. Asking how slippery the floor was at the time of the fall could help you prove the owner’s negligence. The floor must be slippery enough that a reasonable and prudent property owner would have remedied the situation before the fall happened. It may take hiring a subject-matter expert to help you fulfill this burden of proof.
It is important to identify exactly what caused your slip-and-fall accident in San Diego. This is one of the first steps toward identifying the defendant and bringing a claim. Knowing what caused your fall could point to the person or entity responsible for your damages. Photographs of the scene of the accident could help you or your lawyer prove the cause of the slip-and-fall.
You should also ask yourself if you knew about the hazard before you fell. If you saw the hazard and walked across the floor anyway, you could be comparatively at fault for the accident. Comparative fault may not bar you from recovery, but it could lead to a smaller compensation award. The defendant may use your comparative fault against you to establish that a reasonable shopper, worker or another individual would have been able to avoid the fall.
Property owners in California only owe duties of care to individuals who are on public properties or lawfully on private properties. If you were trespassing on someone else’s property when you slipped and fell, you may not have the right to file an injury claim against the property owner – even if he or she was negligent. Property owners do not owe any duties of care to trespassers other than the duty not to intentionally cause injuries. You will only have grounds for an injury claim (with some exceptions) if you were an invited guest, customer or licensee.
Many stores and restaurants in San Diego post signs to warn guests about known slippery floor hazards. Posting a “Caution: Wet Floor” sign after a storm, for example, could fulfill a property owner’s duty to reasonably warn people of a known risk. A warning sign will not, however, completely absolve a property owner of liability for a slip-and-fall accident. The property owner must still have taken reasonable care to prevent the accident. What is reasonable depends on the situation.
Finally, ask yourself if an ordinary property owner would have been able to prevent your slip-and-fall accident in the same circumstances. If so, the defendant in question could be responsible for your damages. Preventing a slip-and-fall takes inspecting a property for hazards, repairing existing dangers and providing adequate warning of nonobvious risks. If the owner failed to fulfill any of these duties, he or she could be liable for your damages.