Premises Liability

Slip & Fall Attorneys in Atlanta, Georgia 

Slip and falls injuries, also referred to as premises liability injuries, can happen anywhere. They can occur in grocery stores, shopping malls, apartment complexes, rental homes, private residences of all types and even shared outdoor spaces of commercial and residential properties. 

These preventable injuries happen when a property owner or a business’s employees fail to provide a safe environment for guests, tenants or customers. If someone is injured due to an unsafe property, the property owner or business can be held liable for those injuries and the medical costs, pain and suffering and lost wages that result. 

What’s Required for a Successful Premises Liability Case 

There are certain thresholds a plaintiff’s case must meet for a slip and fall case to be successful. These laws, which are generally intended to protect property owners from fraudulent or frivolous lawsuits, put situational burdens of proof on the plaintiff and their attorneys. 

In order to prove negligence, you need to be able to show: 

The property owner knew or should have known about the unsafe conditions
The property owner failed to take steps fix the unsafe conditions and prevent an injury

For example, if you are renting a home with a pool and you break the light in the pool and are then shocked as a result of the damage you caused, you wouldn’t be able to file a successful premises liability claim. 

If you can prove that you broke the light in July and immediately told the property owner, who failed to fix the light, and then you were electrocuted in August, you may have a case. In that example the owner knew about the damage and failed to fix it for two months. The defense may also try to argue that you should have known the pool was dangerous, but you used it anyways, in which case there’d be comparative negligence.

Types of Slip & Fall Injuries 

The example most people imagine when slip and fall is mentioned is a person slipping in a puddle at the grocery store. It’s likely the “wet floor” signs we’re all familiar with was developed explicitly to prevent those types of injuries. The actual breadth of premises liability injuries is much, much larger and goes far beyond just slipping, tripping or falling. 

If a family renting a home gets sick because the property owner let mold grow rampant in the home, it would be categorized as a premises liability injury. The illness may not have anything to do with slipping and falling but the injury did occur because the property owner didn’t provide a safe place for their tenants to live. 

Some of the most common slip and fall injuries are related to pools, and not necessarily running around a pool and slipping. If a child gets into an ungated pool and drowns, the incident would be considered a premises liability/slip and fall category of injury. Head injuries and electrocutions are also common pool injuries that are frequently brought to court. 

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