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Premises Liability Claim: Owner's vs. Visitor's Duty of Care...
A premises liability claim usually comes down to whether or not
the owner has taken
reasonable care to make sure visitors don’t get injured.
This is true for premises liability law on different properties:
public, private, or
commercial.
In all situations there are at least two duties of care
to
consider: the owner’s
and the visitor’s.
In your premises liablity
claim the duty of care may also extend to the
property manager, business owner or landlord.
When walking onto
someone else's property you have an obligation to act in a manner that
is
safe for them as well as yourself.
You have to be willing to
keep yourself out of danger and do
what any reasonable person would do
to avoid dangers.
Owner's Duty
of Care:
The owners of the
property have a duty to keep their visitors safe by providing a well
kept environment. They must, firstly, keep their building up to code.
This refers to building
codes, which are among the few well defined
premises liability laws that can be referred to at any time during a
slip and fall injury
lawsuit.
The owner of a property must
also keep their space clean and obstacle free to a reasonable degree
that will
meet common expectations.
This means they must
clean up
spilled liquids from the floor so no one slips and falls.
They must
also pick up fallen objects so no one trips.
Similarly, any
damage to the floor or floor coverings can be dangerous to visitors and
will therefore effect your premises liability claim.
With all of those
things, however, there are exceptions to be made. Premises liability
law recognizes
that spills can only be cleaned up so fast.
The same goes for clearing
fallen objects or fixing broken flooring. When immediate cleanup is not
possible the owners are expected to put up some kind of caution sign.
Visitor's
Duty of Care:
When walking on anyone’s property the visitor’s duty of care includes
looking out
for obstacles that have yet to be taken care of. When
walking after a rain storm anyone should be on the lookout for wet
surfaces.
The same is true when walking around a pool, a kitchen, or
anywhere else there may be spilled liquid. The visitor must also try to
avoid slip and fall injuries by looking where they're walking and not
running or moving around recklessly.
Because of this shared
duty of care it is often the case in premises liability
claims that the owner's and
visitor’s liability cancel each other out.
The bottom line is that
after these kind of slip and fall injuries the injured person will likely
only win damages if they weren’t negligent themselves.
This can be difficult to prove since defendant slip and fall injury
attorneys are adept at convincing jurors that the plaintiff "should
have been more careful."
In most states
though, if the premises liability was extensive then the negligent
visitor should be able to get partial damages.
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