Trip-and-fall cases come from situations where someone trips and then falls to the ground. These are a bit different from a slip and fall or a step and fall. These differences really matter when you’re in court. I’ll get into this in a minute. A trip happens when someone is walking along and their toe catches on something that’s sticking up from the ground where it shouldn’t be. You can also trip when there’s a pit or pothole in the ground that you don’t expect to be there.
Say someone trips over an illegal curb-cut that a property owner made when they were trying to create a driveway. These curb-cuts can break city laws when they’re too steep, too sudden, in a weird spot, or not level with the street next to it. Property owners who make these kinds of mistakes can get into real legal problems. Courts usually make them pay money when these law-breaking situations cause someone to get hurt. When you have these kinds of problems, it’s almost inevitable that someone’s going to trip and fall.
A trip and fall accident happens when something unexpected gets in your way. These kinds of accidents happen every day at stores and businesses. You can also have a trip and fall when the ground is uneven, or when the walking surface changes suddenly. These accidents can also happen when an area doesn’t have enough light for you to see where you’re going.
Whether someone files a lawsuit depends on what happened in each accident. For example, if the person who’s supposed to keep an area safe doesn’t do their job, they can be held responsible under what’s called premises liability.
As mentioned before, a trip and fall accident is a bit different from a slip and fall accident. These different categories matter because they affect what evidence you need to show in court. When someone slips on a slippery floor or object and gets hurt, that’s what we call a “slip and fall” accident. Indoor slip and fall accidents usually happen in places like staircases or ramps, elevators, and floors in restaurants or grocery stores where there might be liquids or grease.
Step and fall accidents can lead to all kinds of injuries, from cuts and scrapes to twisted ankles or knees when you step wrong on something. In the same way, a “stump and fall” accident happens when there’s a crack in the ground or some kind of object in your way. The person stumbles over whatever’s in their way before they fall.
Who Is Responsible for Trip and Fall Injuries?
The person or organization responsible for trip and fall injuries depends on where the accident happened. Cities and towns are usually responsible for keeping their sidewalks and streets in reasonably safe condition. Where your accident happens determines who’s legally responsible.
A person walking down the street might trip over a bit of rebar or a metal stake that’s sticking dangerously out of the sidewalk. If the rest of the sidewalk looks fine, the person walking will probably assume there’s nothing dangerous sticking out that they need to watch for. Since people don’t usually scan the ground for dangers while walking, the city or town may be responsible for any injuries that happen. Sidewalks should be safe for everyday walking and, if someone gets hurt because of hidden dangers, they usually end up with growing medical bills and lost income while they recover. Cities and towns that let these dangerous conditions go unfixed can be held legally responsible.
Common problems include lighting that’s way too dim, stairs that are too steep to be safe, missing landings between flights of stairs, and missing handrails.
These safety problems almost never happen in isolation. Since there are safety standards that builders and property owners have to follow, the structure’s builder or owner may be responsible for any trip and fall injuries that happen.
Store owners can be held responsible in situations like when a rollerblader trips on a ramp that doesn’t meet building codes or when an employee trips on stairs that don’t meet safety standards.
Trip and fall claims are a particular type of personal injury lawsuit. These cases are based on something called negligence. This legal concept means that the person or organization responsible for the injury was careless and didn’t do what they should have done to stop it. To prove negligence, you need to show that someone didn’t meet normal care standards. You’ll need solid documentation and believable witness statements to make your case. We’ll discuss negligence later on.
How Can I Bring a Trip and Fall Lawsuit?
If someone gets hurt from a trip and fall on someone else’s property, they may be able to sue the property owner. To file a lawsuit, they need to show that they had some kind of legal connection to the person who’s in charge of the property. They might also need to prove that the person in charge had a legal duty to keep them safe or at least warn them about any dangers. Like we talked about earlier, sometimes other people can be held responsible for trip and fall accidents too. Property owners have to take enough care of their property and keep up with maintenance to make sure it’s safe and free from dangerous conditions. What this actually means can change based on why and how someone comes onto the property. This falls under something called premises liability, which was covered earlier.
The laws about people coming onto property and how they’re grouped can be different from state to state. These differences can have a bigger effect on your case than most people think. That’s why it matters for property owners to look at their local laws so they know what they’re responsible for and how to follow their state’s requirements.
Property owners also need to make sure they check their property pretty regularly. When they find unsafe conditions, they need to fix them properly or at least put up warnings about them. If they don’t do this, they could be held responsible for injuries that happen because of dangerous conditions on their property. That’s true even if they didn’t know the dangerous condition was there. Property owners who don’t keep up with usual maintenance can end up paying lots of money. When someone gets hurt on your property, courts won’t accept “I didn’t know” as an excuse. If you win or lose a lawsuit can come down to having records showing that you did your usual inspections.
There are a few main ways a property owner can be held responsible. The owner or their employee could have done something that made the property unsafe. Or maybe the owner or their employee knew about an unsafe condition but didn’t do anything to fix it. It’s also possible that the owner or their employee should have known about the unsafe condition on the property.
A property owner is considered negligent when they don’t take enough care to keep their property in safe condition. The person who got hurt needs to show that they weren’t being careless themselves when the accident happened. If the injured person did something that contributed to their own injury, the money they get could go down because of contributory negligence laws or other requirements. Let me give you an example of how this works. Let’s say someone sees a dangerous area on a property that’s blocked off with a fence and has a danger sign. If they go into that area anyway and get hurt, it could lower the amount of money they get from a lawsuit.
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What Kind of Damages Can a Trip and Fall Incur?
If the property owner is found to be negligent or if they breached their duty of care in preventing an accident or injury from happening on their property, the plaintiff may be awarded damages. When courts calculate what you’re owed, they take a careful look at every angle of your case. These damages usually include a few different types of compensation, such as pain and suffering, future and present medical bills, lost income, or loss of earning capacity, and punitive or treble damages.
You might be able to get punitive damages in some types of personal injury claims. These are damages designed to punish offenders and stop them from repeating the same behavior. These damages represent the court’s strongest response to dangerous behavior that caused someone to get hurt. They’re usually awarded in very bad cases where the defendant acted on purpose or in a way that showed they didn’t care at all about the plaintiff’s safety.
Punitive damages go past just covering your actual losses. For you to receive these damages, your case needs to show that the property owner’s behavior was extremely careless or done on purpose. When courts award these damages, they use them to send a strong message to property owners about keeping their properties safe for visitors. The property owner may also be ordered to repair or fix the dangerous condition that led to your injury.
If you’d prefer not to go through the court system, you and the property owner might be able to work out a trip and fall settlement. This is when the property owner pays you a specific amount of money, and, in exchange, you give up your right to sue them in court. Working out a settlement is usually much faster than going through court proceedings. When you settle, both parties get to have a say in the outcome instead of leaving everything up to a jury.
Do I Need a Lawyer For My Trip and Fall?
There are actually a few pretty good reasons to hire a lawyer when you have a trip and fall lawsuit. These cases can get messy pretty fast. Since these cases usually include different parties and legal theories, you’ll definitely want to talk to a local slip and fall lawyer who has handled these types of cases before. LegalMatch can help you find the right injury attorney for your needs.
Property owners, maintenance businesses, and insurance carriers all have different responsibilities in your case. Each of these parties will bring their own legal defenses and paperwork requirements. Your medical bills and lost wages are at stake while these different parties work out their answers.
An attorney will tell you about your legal rights and what you need to handle under your state’s laws for your trip and fall case. State laws can be very different about who’s responsible and how that gets decided. Your attorney will also be able to file a lawsuit for you and represent you in court if that ends up being necessary.
Legal deadlines start running as soon as your accident happens. If you miss a filing deadline, you’ll completely lose your right to any compensation. Your attorney keeps track of these dates while you work on healing.
You need to preserve evidence within just a few days after your fall. Surveillance footage usually gets deleted and witnesses start to forget what they saw. Dangerous conditions get fixed. Your lawyer knows just which evidence needs to be saved right away and how to get it through the right legal channels.
Insurance adjusters usually reach out to injured people pretty soon after accidents happen. They usually make quick settlements that almost never cover all your medical costs and lost income. Your attorney will review these settlement proposals and tell you what your claim is actually worth.
You’ll need to keep all your medical records together well to build the strongest case possible. Emergency room records, visits to specialists, and physical therapy sessions all help show how much your case is worth. Your lawyer works with your healthcare providers to get all your records and any medical opinions you’ll need.
