An icy sidewalk or a slippery floor can result in a dangerous fall. If you have been injured because of dangerous premises, talk to an attorney who specializes in personal injury litigation. A personal injury lawyer will listen to your experience, explain your rights, and help you get compensation, if the facts warrant it.

Hazardous Conditions on Public Premises

Business owners owe a duty to the public to keep both the inside and outside of their properties safe so that no one suffers harm while on the property. Too often, individuals who slip and fall immediately pick themselves up, brush themselves off and tell any bystanders (i.e., witnesses) that they are OK. After all, it is embarrassing to fall down. Sometimes people think it was their own fault that they fell.

When the soreness doesn't go away and, in fact, gets worse, the injured victim finally seeks medical attention. The family doctor may not know how to treat traumatic injuries. The doctor may miss the need for extensive (and expensive) medical care, including possible surgical intervention. It is at this point that many accident victims seek legal advice from an attorney. Unfortunately, by this time, there may be little an attorney can do to help due to the lack of important evidence.

What caused you to fall? Specifically, what was on the floor that caused the individual to trip or slip? Without this key piece of information, there can be no recovery. It is imperative that victims of falls take note of what caused them to fall. Without this information, there will be no way for an attorney to establish the victim's right to recovery.

The source question. It must be determined what the source of the substance causing the fall was. Was the source left there by (a) the business owner or the business owner's employees, or (b) any third person (i.e., another customer)? The reason it is so important to know whether or not the source of the dangerous condition was caused by the business owner or his employees is the legal concept of Notice. If a business owner or his employees are responsible for the cause of the fall, the victim does not need to prove "notice" in order to recover for his injuries.

Proving Notice. If a third party, such as another customer, is responsible for the cause of the accident, "notice" is required in order for a victim to recovery for his injuries. To prove "notice" means to prove that there was an awareness of the condition that caused the fall, but that the business owner did nothing or not enough to correct it.

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Sidewalks, streets, and parking lots

Many fall-down accidents occur on sidewalks, streets, and parking lots. These types of accidents give rise to a whole different set of issues.

Defective streets or roadway surfaces. If a person is caused to fall because of a crack in the sidewalk, a hole in the street, or a chewed up parking lot, notice will often not be an issue. In many instances, notice will be assumed because these types of defects do not happen overnight. These conditions generally develop over a substantial length of time. In these instances, the landowner is charged with notice.

It is extremely important, once again, to determine exactly what caused you to fall and to precisely pinpoint its location. Unlike interior falls, defects such as these are generally not repaired immediately and can be photographed. A difference of six inches can determine which landowner may be liable. The exact location will be important when determining ownership of the property.

Governmental entities. When a person falls on a sidewalk or in a street, it brings into play the question of who owns and is obligated to maintain that particular street – the property owner, the Commonwealth, or a local governmental agency. There are a whole set of requirements that one must meet in order to recover for injuries suffered in these types of accidents. In general, the government is immune from lawsuits except under very specific circumstances outlined in the Pennsylvania statutes.

Dangerous surfaces caused by snow and ice. In inclement weather, one cannot recover for slipping on precipitation (i.e., ice and snow) that has only recently fallen or frozen over. This again, goes back to the issue of "notice." An owner must be afforded a reasonable length of time to clear his property of the ice and snow.

In Pennsylvania, this legal concept has come to be known as the "hills and ridges" doctrine. That doctrine holds that the ice and snow that cause the accident must be shown to have been there for a long enough period of time that it exhibits a rough, uneven surface – hills and ridge. This means the precipitation had enough time to melt and refreeze. Of course, this is not a hard and fast rule. We may be able to demonstrate that the ice has been there for a long amount of time, despite being smooth in appearance.

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Steps to take if you have been in a slip and fall accident

Take note of what caused you to fall and its general appearance. It is crucial for any slip and fall case that you be able to establish what made you fall. Whether it is a defect in the pavement or ice or some man-made material-- you need to be able to describe what made you fall. Any additional details you can supply will add to the possibility of a case settling in your favor. You will have to establish how long the defective condition existed prior to your accident. This will prove that someone with responsibility for the area should have repaired the situation or warned people before your injury occurred.

Get the names and possibly the phone numbers of anyone who saw you fall (especially any store employees). Witnesses are extremely important in slip and fall accidents for one reason: Without witnesses, there will be only your word for what happened. Since you are trying to gain compensation, your word may not be enough.

Notify the property or store owner of the fall and insist that a written report be filled out. Just as witnesses are important, it is important that there be a written report completed at the time of the incident. Insurance adjusters are more likely to take your story seriously if it is documented by some internal report from their insured – the property or business owner.

If at all possible, get pictures and a sample of the substance that caused the fall. In many instances, it is necessary to have an expert evaluate what made you fall in order to establish the property or store owner's liability. In such cases, you want the expert to have as much information as possible about what made you fall.

Get medical treatment as soon as possible. If you have been injured in an accident, go to an emergency room to have an emergency room physician perform a physical examination. Or, you must go to your family doctor as soon as you are able. Often a person who is in an accident is in a state of shock, and is not aware of how severe the injuries are. As a result, it is quite common for people to feel only minimal pain right after the accident only to wake up the next morning with pain so severe they find it difficult to get out of bed.

Follow up with any medical treatment that is recommended for you. Very often, the emergency room doctor will take x-rays. If the x-rays show that nothing is fractured, you are released with a recommendation to follow up with your family doctor. It is important that you make the appointment as soon as you get home from the hospital. If you do not have a family doctor, find a doctor who specializes in physical injuries to accident victims and make an appointment with that doctor.

Tell your doctors every place you are hurting. You must be careful to tell any doctor who treats you about every part of your body that is hurting. This information becomes part of your medical records. Very often a person will only mention to the doctor the one part of the body that is hurting the most. Only months later, after the initial injuries have been addressed, will the person mention that a different part of the body hurts. It is very difficult to persuade an insurance company that the injuries not mentioned in early medical records were caused by the accident.

Get a doctor's disability note for any time off from work. If you need to take time off work because you cannot perform the duties of your job as a result of your injuries, make sure your doctor prepares a disability slip. On this slip it is important to note that you have been placed on disability. You must bring or send the slip to your employer. Any earnings that are lost, whether through actual deductions of pay or through the use of vacation or sick time, are recoverable-- but only if they have been documented in the medical records and employment records.

Ask a family member to take photos of your injuries and the scene of the accident. Take photos of all of your injuries a few days after the accident, which is when the bruising may be more visible. Also, take photos of the scene of the accident. The photos of your injuries will prove to be extremely valuable when you try to settle your claim. These photos will be the best proof possible of the damage you suffered as a result of the accident. The photos of the accident scene may be important for purposes of reconstructing how the accident happened some time later on, when the scene is very likely to have changed.

Consult with an attorney who has extensive experience in premises liability cases as soon as possible. Depending upon the jurisdiction, you may have 1, 2 or even 3 years after you fall to bring suit for your injuries. However, when it comes to slip and fall cases, you have very little time. You need to consult with a personal injury lawyer who can give you the best chances of succeeding in any case you may wish to bring. The reason is simple – loss of crucial evidence. Preservation of evidence is crucial in these cases. Much care must be exercised early on in trying to secure whatever evidence is available to maximize the chances of proving the owner's liability. This will most certainly involve one or more visits to the site by investigators and experts, as well as securing statements from witnesses.

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