A slip and fall injury can devastate your life, leaving you unable to work and faced with a growing pile of medical bills you cannot pay.
If your injury occurred because of a hazard on someone else’s property, you may have grounds to seek financial compensation. A slip and fall injury lawyer in Pompano Beach can help you evaluate your options and protect your rights under the law.
To learn more, call the Law Firm of Anidjar & Levine today. We offer free case evaluations to help you understand your legal options after a fall.
What Causes Slip and Fall Injuries?
In Florida, slip and fall injury accidents kill more senior residents than any other cause of death, according to the Florida Department of Health (FDH). These incidents are the second-most common cause of death for all residents throughout the state, killing more people than car accidents. Falls also lead to more hospitalizations than any other type of accident.
Although virtually any scenario can become unsafe under the right conditions, many falls occur due to a few common property conditions, including:
- Cracked or broken sidewalks;
- Unmarked curbs or steps;
- Wet or slippery surfaces;
- Poor lighting;
- Missing or broken handrails; and
- Poor property maintenance practices.
Typically, victims experience personal injuries like dislocations, sprains, broken bones, concussions, head injuries, nerve damage, neck injuries, or spinal cord damage. If the victim is older, the damage can be even more extensive, making recovery even more difficult.
No matter how your fall occurred, we can help. Contact our lawyers immediately so we can get to work on your case.
Who is Responsible for My Slip and Fall?
In Florida, premises liability laws require business owners and managers to maintain their property or facility in a reasonably safe manner that does not pose a danger to visitors.
If the owner or manager becomes aware of a potentially dangerous situation, they must address it immediately by either making repairs or protecting visitors from the hazard in some way.
For example, if a store’s parking lot develops a hazardous pothole, the owner or manager must handle the repairs. Until their contractor can come out to complete the repairs, they could place barricades around the hole or close off that section of the parking lot. If they fail to do so—and someone steps in the pothole and sustains a broken ankle—the property owner may have liability for those injuries.
In some situations, victims may contribute to their injuries. If you were using your phone and not paying attention to where you were walking, for example, the court could find you partially liable.
If you contributed to your own injuries, it is essential that you contact us before speaking with the property owner or their representatives. We will fight to get you the maximum compensation possible, even if you were partially to blame for the accident.
Can I hold the Property Owner Responsible for My Injury Costs?
Costs related to a fall injury can be astronomical. According to the FDH, the cost of slip and fall injuries in 2013 was almost $4 billion. Individual hospital bills averaged just less than $50,000. These figures do not include the amount of lost income and future care costs that slip and fall victims will incur.
If you fell and sustained injuries because someone else failed to maintain their property in a reasonably safe manner, you should not have to bear the burden of those losses.
We can build a case to document the cause of your injuries and, by demonstrating premises liability, present a strong claim for compensation. In that case, the property owner or their insurance company will be responsible for your injuries.
Do I need a Slip and Fall Injury Lawyer?
If you hope to hold the responsible party accountable for a dangerous situation and the harm it caused you, one of our lawyers will be your most powerful and effective advocate.
If your accident occurred in a public place or at a business, you will likely have to deal with an insurance company. Insurance companies—and their attorneys—will attempt to payout as little as possible in claims. If they can get away with it, they will try to deny your injury claim altogether.
We can use our skills navigating the legal system to hold them be accountable for the damages you have suffered. We will gather the evidence necessary to support your claim by talking to witnesses, reviewing company safety records and maintenance data, and obtaining any surveillance video footage that may document your accident.
If necessary, we can call on safety experts to review the circumstances of your accident and testify on your behalf. We will collect the evidence necessary to prove the property owner’s negligence and collect damages on your behalf.
How can a Lawyer Prove Negligence?
To win damages, we must provide evidence that the property owner’s negligence caused your injuries. This requires proving the four legal elements of negligence:
- The owner of the property had a duty to the public to maintain their property in a reasonably safe manner;
- The property owner breached that duty by allowing a hazard or unsafe condition to exist on the property;
- The unsafe condition caused your slip, trip, or fall and the fall caused your injuries; and
- You suffered actual, provable damages as result of the injuries.
To prove negligence for your slip and fall injuries, we must also show that the owner or manager knew about the hazard in question—or that they should have known about it.
To determine whether the owner should have known about the hazard, the courts use the reasonable person standard. The reasonable person standard considers whether other property owners or managers in the same situation would have known about the problem and taken steps to correct it.
If the court finds that a reasonable person in that situation would have known of the hazard and would have acted on that knowledge to protect you, they will likely hold the owner responsible for the damages in your case.
Finding the Right Slip and Fall Injury Lawyer in Pompano Beach
Having the right attorney to assist you can ensure the protection of your legal rights and help provide the best possible outcome for your case.
The Law Firm of Anidjar & Levine provides free consultations and case reviews for our Florida clients. Contact us today to schedule an appointment or to speak directly to a slip or fall injury attorney in Pompano Beach.
We Can Help.
