Accidentally slipping and taking a nasty tumble happens to the best of us. However, some people are unable to get back up. Some people are badly injured and need emergency medical attention for severe injuries, all because of a bad fall. While these kinds of claims are often looked down upon as frivolous or unnecessary, injured victims might need monetary compensation just to cover the costs of the injuries.
Slip and fall accidents happen for a variety of reasons. Wet floors, poor maintenance of property, and physical obstacles are just a few common causes of falling accidents. Often, the owner of the property or premises where the accident happened may be held liable. Owners typically owe a legal duty of care to make premises safe for guests. Otherwise, they may be responsible for injuries. Even so, this duty only goes so far, and under certain conditions, property owners owe no duty of care. The best way to determine whether you have a claim for damages is to call an attorney and ask.
Get a private, free evaluation of your potential case by calling our slip and fall lawyers at The Martello Law Firm at (914) 685-6950.
How Someone Might Be Hurt in a Slip and Fall Accident in Mount Vernon
Slip and fall accidents happen all the time, but that does not mean they are not worth legal action. To get fair compensation for your injuries, we must determine how your accident happened. Knowing the hazards or dangerous conditions present on the property will help us prove how the defendant is responsible.
Spills and Wet Floors
Many falls happen because someone spilled something on the floor, and nobody bothered to clean it up. While this might seem too mundane to be worth legal action, do not be fooled. Even something as simple as a spill might warrant a call to our slip and fall lawyers.
Spills are common in places that serve food and drinks. For example, you might be in a restaurant, and another patron spills their drink on the floor. If no employee bothers to clean up the spill, or they do not clean it up quickly enough, you might slip in it when you get up to use the restroom. Another possibility is that a customer in a grocery store drops an item containing liquid, like a soda or jug of milk. Again, other customers might slip and fall if an employee does not clean the spill.
Poor Maintenance
Sometimes, accidents happen because the property has been poorly maintained. Any property or premises requires regular maintenance to be fit for use and safe for customers or guests. If maintenance is infrequent or inadequate, the premises might quickly fall into disrepair. For example, maybe you fell because there was a hold in a rotten floorboard. Maybe the floorboards were warped and uneven due to water damage that was never repaired. A person or business may be held responsible for their lack of care.
Obstacles or Debris
Perhaps you fell not because the premises were damaged or in disrepair. Maybe there were physical objects or debris in your way that the property owner should have cleared away. For example, if you are walking through a retail store while shopping and an employee leaves boxes of merchandise out on the floor, you might trip over one of the boxes and seriously injure yourself. Another possibility is that another customer or even an employee left trash on the floor, causing you to slip and fall. While these might seem like mundane conditions, they can lead to bad injuries and high costs for victims.
The Property Owner’s Responsibility in a Slip and Fall Case in Mount Vernon
To prove your claims and get compensation, we need to prove how the defendant violated their legal obligation to make sure their property was safe for you to use. This may become complicated, as this duty of care does not extend to all circumstances and might be limited depending on the situation.
General Duty of Care
In New York, property owners have a legal duty of care to keep the property safe if other people will use it. This duty requires owners to remove or repair known hazards and unsafe conditions. If unsafe conditions cannot be fixed or removed, property owners should warn guests of the hazards. This might involve placing signs, issuing verbal warnings, or restricting access to unsafe areas of the property.
If the property owner does not know of any hazards on the property, their duty has still not been totally fulfilled. Next, they must make reasonable inspections for unknown hazards or unsafe conditions. This could involve simply walking through the premises to check for things that need to be cleaned up, or it might instead require more extensive maintenance, depending on the situation.
Exceptions
Not all property owners owe a duty of care to other people using the premises. According to G.O.B. Law § 9-103(1)(a), a landowner owes no duty of care to make the premises safe if people use it for various outdoor activities such as hiking, fishing, hunting, boating, and other recreational activities. Property owners do not even have to provide warnings of dangerous conditions.
Under subsection (b) of the same law, landowners who allow others to use their land for outdoor activities like those mentioned above do not extend any assurance that the property is safe. People authorized to use the premises for outdoor recreational activities are not considered invitees or licensees and are owed no duty of care. Finally, the property owners do not assume responsibility for any injuries caused by recreational outdoor activities on the land.
However, under subsection (2), this law does not absolve property owners of other liabilities that already exist. For example, a landowner may still be liable if the unsafe conditions on the property are due to a willful or malicious failure to warn or protect against dangerous conditions.
Contact Our Mount Vernon Slip and Fall Attorneys to Get Help
Get a private, free evaluation of your potential case by calling our slip and fall lawyers at The Martello Law Firm at (914) 685-6950.
