Advice from Personal Injury Attorney, Ben Shell
I’d like to take a moment to discuss slip-and-fall accidents. Imagine you go to the grocery store. While on the property, you slip on some sort of substance on the ground that you did not see, and injure yourself. Can you hold the property owner liable? Absolutely.
In order to establish liability in a slip-and-fall case, the injured person must prove that the business establishment had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition and should have taken action to remedy it. Actual knowledge means the business establishment knew that the substance was on the ground and did nothing to remedy it. Constructive knowledge is a little more difficult to prove. Constructive knowledge can be shown by proving the dangerous condition existed for such a length of time that, in the exercise of ordinary care, the business establishment should have known of the condition; or the condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable.
When there is a slip-and-fall due to a slippery substance, it is not always easy to determine what the substance is; who put it there; or how long it has been there. These are crucial questions that usually need to be answered for you to successfully prove your case. That’s why if you or someone you know suffers a slip-and-fall, it is crucial to immediately get as much detail as possible about how the fall happened, what was on the ground to cause the accident, where the substance came from, and how long it was on the ground, as well as to get any witnesses’ information, photographs of the scene, and make a prompt report to the business establishment. It is equally important that you contact an attorney immediately so a complete investigation can be completed as quickly as possible.