Businesses aren’t always responsible for injuries that occur on their property. If someone comes to the grocery store drunk or under the influence of drugs and precedes to fall flat on their face, they will probably have a hard time making a claim against the business for their injuries. The same is true of someone who gets hurt while racing around on a shopping cart in a parking lot.
Still, there are many circumstances that lead to liability for a business. How do you determine if you can bring a claim against the business for your injuries?
Can you show that negligence was a factor in your slip-and-fall?
People can get hurt because of their own mistakes or unpredictable occurrences. Businesses have premises liability insurance that can help protect them and their visitors for injuries that occur at the company’s facilities.
However, if you want to make a slip-and-fall claim against a business, you will typically have to demonstrate that there is some degree of negligence on its part that led to your injury. Negligence typically means failing to do what a reasonable person would in that specific situation.
Not mopping up a puddle caused by a leak in the ceiling or not leaving a sign out to warn customers about the wet, recently mopped floor might constitute negligence. So might a failure to properly clean or maintain the facilities.
You also need to have verifiable losses to bring a slip-and-fall claim
Negligence isn’t the only requirement for a successful claim against a business. You also must have suffered either an injury or expensive property damage during the incident. You might have broken your phone, which could cost more than $1,000. You could have broken your arm, which will cost you thousands of dollars in medical expenses and even more in lost wages.
If you believe that that you suffered provable losses after a slip-and-fall, you may have grounds for an insurance claim or even a civil lawsuit against the business.
