What is a Slip and Fall Injury Case?
If you slip and fall and get injured on a property owned by someone else and you prove the property owner responsible for your accident, you are liable to claim your injury compensation from the property owner. As per the slip and fall lawyers in Miami, another party’s carelessness makes them liable for your injuries.
What Should Be Proved to Win a Slip and Fall Injury Claim?
Well, as obvious as it sounds, you need to prove the property owner (or someone responsible to take care of the property) responsible for your slip. Only when you prove that your injury is the result of the negligence of the property owner, which could have been avoided, will you be able to win your claim.
Two major liability questions arise when you file a lawsuit against a party.
- Who is potentially liable for the accident?
- Whether the party caused or failed to prevent the accident?
To win your claim for the injuries, you first need to anticipate and defend yourself against the argument that it was the carelessness of the injured person that caused the accident.
Some of the top slip and fall lawyers in Miami suggest several other things that are considered while proving the liability of the property owner are as follows –
- Could the obstacle or unsafe condition have been avoided or made less harmful by putting adequate warning signs or preventing access to the area?
- Was the creation of the hazardous condition justified? What caused the situation to exist in the first place? Was the justification valid at the time of the accident?
- Did the dangerous situation persist for long enough to be detected and repaired or eliminated from the location to avoid the accident?
- Did the property owner or the concerned authorities take appropriate action to resolve the issue with the location before the accident took place?
- Was there a policy in place by the property owner or manager to routinely check for the dangerous condition around the property?
- Was poor visibility or lighting issue the reason for the accident?
Who Is Responsible to Pay?
If you slip and fall and injure yourself at someone else’s property and you feel that your accident is the liability of the property owner, it is the other party that will have to pay for your injuries. You might fall in any of the places like hotels, shopping malls, department stores, people’s homes, your workplace, etc.
Depending on the location, you might get your claim from the business (in case of a commercial place) or homeowner (in case of people’s home) or from your workers’ compensation claim system (in case if you fell at your workplace). However, if the other party somehow proves that your accident was a result of solely your carelessness, you might not get any claim from the other party.
How Much Compensation Can You Get?
When you win, you are liable to get your claim from the other party. Mostly, the compensation is the sum of your medical bills, your lost income due to missed work and your pain.
Whereas it is easy to add up the medical bills and the lost salary, however, estimating the compensation for the pain caused by the injuries that happened in the accident is a complicated task. There is no definite law to calculate the pain in terms of money. This clause solely depends on negotiations between the two parties and the estimates according to the severity of the injuries.
Most cases resolve through the out of court settlement and hence interference of laws is generally not required to evaluate pain. However, if you decide to file a lawsuit against the other party, the jury usually decides the compensation against your pain and suffering.
