Public spaces are a part of our everyday lives and in order for us to be able to care for ourselves or other people, we must eventually enter a public space and some point throughout the day. These spaces include grocery stores, government buildings, convenience stores, pharmacies, doctor’s offices and more; but what they all have in common is that these are spaces that not only are open to the majority of the public, but the owner of the property is required to express a duty of care just like any other US citizen, as a slip and fall lawyer from Wieand Law Firm knows.
This means keeping spaces free of hazards that can harm people, but often times that duty is breached and someone’s negligence results in the failure to uphold that duty, leaving a person injured. One of the most common injuries in a public space is known as the slip-and-fall accident: an accident in which one either slips or trips over a floor hazard, usually a liquid or uneven surface. It’s the duty of the property owner to make sure these spaces are hazard free to prevent such injuries so if you’re the victim of a slip and fall accident you have the right to file a claim to recover damages, as a slip and fall lawyer can explain. But how can you prove negligence to strengthen your case? Below are points to consider:
All public spaces have wet floor signs and other types of warning signs to let you know where a floor hazard is while encouraging you to avoid it. If no warning signs are up then, there may be cause for potential negligence. Especially if security footage shows that employees representing the property have seen and were aware of the hazard.
If a place happens to have leaking ceilings, broken pipes, or other structural damages that have been neglected for a significant period of time, these will eventually create a hazard that a person will likely encounter. Failure to address these structural damages without explaining a reasonable inability or cause to avoid it is negligence and can be brought up to argue your case.
The history of the building/company will be looked at in the case to see whether or not they’ve shown negligence in the past and how. If the place in particular has a history of negligence then those past events will stack up and act against the property owner. That is, if they’ve shown to be negligent in the past, the courts are usually convinced that they’re likely to do it again, a slip and fall lawyer can explain this in detail.
