Personal Injuries: Slip and Fall Claims

There are many different types of personal injuries that can give rise to civil litigation. While the most commonly known types of personal injury lawsuits are car accident cases, you may also be able to bring a civil suit to recover damages if you slip and fall in a public place or even at a private house where you are a visitor. These types of slip and fall claims are covered under a special body of personal injury or tort law called "premises liability law."

Understanding Premises Liability Law

Most personal injury claims are based on the idea that people owe a duty to each other. This duty is a duty to be reasonably careful, so as not to create a situation where someone may become injured. As a property owner, people also have a duty to those who come to visit the property. The specific nature of their duty depends on who exactly is coming to visit:

• Certain visitors are classified as invitees. If a property owner invites someone to a location for the primary benefit of the property owner, then the visitor will be considered an invitee. Customers at a shopping mall or a store are widely considered to be invitees, since they are there to do business with the owner of the property for the benefit of that owner. When a visitor is classified as an invitee, the property owner owes him the utmost duty of care. This usually requires the property owner to inspect the premises for any and all potential dangers and to either correct dangers he finds or warn visitors about those dangers
• Other visitors are classified as licensees. Guests and friends who go to a private home are likely classified as invitees, since these guests are there for the mutual benefit of the guest and property owner. A property owner owes an intermediate level duty to his invitees. He needs to fix any dangers he reasonably should know about, or warn about those dangers, but he doesn't necessarily have to go out and inspect and look for them.
• The final category is trespassers. Property owners don't have to make things safe for trespassers, but they cannot create traps either. 

Slip and Fall and Premises Liability Law

When you slip and fall at a property owned by someone else, if that fall was found to be caused by a breach of the duty of care owed under premises liability law, the person who owns the property can be viewed as negligent by the law. This would mean he'd be responsible for paying your damages that arose from his negligence including damages for:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages
• Pain and suffering
• Emotional Distress

Getting Help

If you believe you have been the victim of negligence that caused you to slip and fall, you need to contact a lawyer. Your attorney can evaluate your case and help you to file suit so you can get the damages you deserve.