Accident and Injury Specialists.

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Theories of Liability

There are theories of liability that a slip-and-fall case must support. You need to prove either that a property owner (or their employee) should have recognized a dangerous condition and removed or repaired the potential danger, but did not, OR that a property owner (or their employee) actually caused the dangerous condition leading to your slip-and-fall accident by leaving a hazardous obstacle in your way.

I would like to offer some examples to better understand these theories of liability.

Theresa lives on the second floor of an old two story apartment building that has no elevator. One day as she walks down the staircase one of the rotted wooden steps brakes in the middle and Theresa's leg falls through the hole fracturing her foot. In cases similar to this example, the key question is whether a reasonable person would have identified the condition as hazardous, and whether the defendant had ample opportunity to remedy the situation before the accident occurred.

The owner and the management of the building have an affirmative duty to inspect and repair dangerous conditions (such as worn and weakened wooden stairs) on the property. Any reasonable person in the owner's position would have inspected the structural integrity of the staircase and inevitably would have discovered the rotting wood and fixed the problem. Because a property owner failed to remedy the dangerous condition, they are liable for Theresa's injuries.

Another example would be something like this: James shops at a home improvement retail store. He is looking for gazebo materials for his backyard. As he walks through the aisles he hits his head on a substantial wooden beam protruding out from the rest of the stack. He falls down, hitting his head and back on the concrete floor. If in fact the area was poorly stacked by an employee, leaving a wooden beam protruding and partially blocking the aisle, the store is responsible for James' injuries as it was reasonably foreseeable that someone could bump into it and fall due to the condition.

How to Prove Negligence and Liability

The term "reasonable" often comes up in settlement negotiations. This is because to find someone negligent and therefore liable for the damages in a slip-and-fall case, a property owner (or their employees) must have failed to act as a reasonably prudent person would have acted under the circumstances similar to those leading up to the accident.

There are many factors that should be considered in this regard. I'll point out some of them that come up often:

- hazardous condition or obstacle should have existed long enough for a reasonable property owner or employee to take action to eliminate the hazard;

- a property owner or employee may have a policy of routinely checking for potential hazards on the property (there must be some sort of record) and if so, was that protocol followed immediately before the hazard;

- creation of the potential hazard was not reasonably justified and still existed at the time of the slip-and-fall;

- hazardous condition could have been made less dangerous through preventive measures like relocating the hazard or placing adequate warning signs;

- poor or limited visibility was a factor in causing slip and fall.

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