When you visit a business on their property, you have every right as a visitor to expect that the business and/or those responsible for the maintenance of the property have taken the necessary precautions to keep you safe from injuries during your visit. This means maintaining the property and all facilities to ensure that they are up to code, that any ongoing hazards are properly signed and that appropriate warning has been issued and that when possible, corrective actions have been taken to limit your risk.
Unfortunately, this is not always the case. Too often, people are injured due to avoidable hazards while visiting business locations, from things as simple and solvable as a wet floor to much more serious structural issues like broken elevators, faulty staircases, and more. Regardless of the type of injury, if you have been injured because a business failed to maintain a safe location for you to visit, you may have the right to seek compensation. Step one is to lawyer up: get in touch with Miami injury lawyers as soon as possible to figure out the immediate next actions to take.
One more thing worth noting: NEVER sign anything that the at-fault business furnishes after an accident, because you may find that you waived your rights without realizing.
Who Is Entitled To Compensation After An Injury At A Business Location?
When you walk into a restroom at a shopping mall and an employee has just cleaned it, you are met with a yellow sign warning you of the wet floors. The same when there is a spill at a grocery store, or a leaky pipe in the ceiling dripping onto a tile floor in an office building. What happens when there are no signs to warn you, and you suffer an injury after a slip and fall from the wet floor that you were not aware of? Are you entitled to compensation?
We wish that this next paragraph was where we could give you a clear yes/no answer about whether or not you are the victim of a premise liability that entitles you to compensation, but it’s often more complicated than that. This is why it is so important that you get in touch with an experienced attorney in your area as soon as possible since there are many different nuances about things such as fault and liability, as well as the important question of how much money you deserve.
Proving Fault And Liability
The first thing that you and your lawyer will need to do is to prove that the business is actually liable for your injuries and the costs associated with them. To do this, they will need to prove a few things:
- The business failed to take corrective actions that would have kept you safe from injury, and had the reasonable ability to do so
- This failure resulted in an accident that you were injured in
The actual legal mechanism here is a lot more complicated, but your attorney will be better suited to explain the process and guide you through it as you are working together.
To Settle Or To Sue After A Slip And Fall?
Again, you and your lawyer will be able to determine this process. You will need to file a claim against the business and their insurance company to initiate any sort of progress, and even this filing should be done with the support of an attorney to make sure that you are taking all of the right steps without accidentally impacting your own negotiating position.
Remember that you have a statute of limitations before you must file a lawsuit, so take advantage of this time in order to have your lawyer negotiate a settlement and save yourself the time, money, and stress of a trial.
