The crucial element in proving a slip-and-fall case is demonstrating that the owner or other entity responsible for maintaining the property on which you slipped and fell was negligent in maintaining his/her property in a reasonably safe way.
Generally, if you are a customer on a property (for instance, if you are shopping at a store), the owner of that business has a higher duty to protect you not only from the conditions that the owner knew of but also the ones that he had a reason to know of. In other words, if a reasonable business owner would have known of a certain dangerous condition and would have taken steps to prevent it or fix it, but the property owner in your incident failed to do so, you are likely to be entitled to a recovery.
Let’s compare and contrast two different slip-and-fall scenarios, one of which is likely to give rise to the property owner’s liability for an injury, while in the other case the injured person is unlikely to prevail in his/her case against the property owner:
1. John goes into a pharmacy store in San Francisco and while trying to pick out a shampoo in the hair-products isle, he slips and falls on a spilled hair lotion. The investigation shows that the lotion was spilled when the store’s employee was unpacking and placing the hair product on the shelf and that employee didn’t thoroughly clean the area before leaving and didn’t put a warning sign in that area as often required. Under these circumstances, John has a good chance to win his slip-and-fall case against the store, because it was ultimately the store’s responsibility to maintain the shopping area in a safe manner and the store’s employee was negligent by failing to maintain the safe conditions in the store or warn customers against a dangerous condition.
2. Brad goes into a grocery store and while walking through the magazines isle, slips and falls on blueberry jam that was spilled by a customer 5 minutes before the incident. The investigation reveals that the store has a strict policy of having its employee walk through the store and inspect the floor and the shelves every hour. Under this circumstances, Brad will have a hard time to recover for his slip-and-fall injuries. First, the store owner didn’t create the dangerous condition; one of the customers did. Secondly and even more importantly, the store was probably not negligent because it did what a reasonable person would have done to maintain its property by requiring frequent and periodic inspections throughout the store. Arkady Itkin, Esq.
Here are some of the most common mistakes that can significantly reduce or even jeopardize the value of your personal injury case:
1. Waiting for too long to treat after your injury incident. Few things cast more doubt on the severity of your injuries in the eyes of the insurance companies / opposing counsel than large gaps in treatment. This makes sense. After all, the other side is only entitled to doubt how much pain you are suffering from if you were not eager to get help soon after sustaining the injury or if you didn’t treat consistently. Thus, it's probably not a good idea to be "tough" after serious accident and decline ambulance services and emergency room treatment if you experience pain.
2. Telling the insurance company adjuster that you weren't seriously injured. It is almost always the case that the person who is injured in an accident does not experience pain immediately after the impact due to adrenaline rush and other factors. Much of the pain and discomfort in neck, back and other parts of the body appears 24 hour after the accident or even later. Some of the serious symptoms are not noticed until several days after the incident or even longer. Thus, you should not rush to inform your insurance company about what your exact injuries were shortly after the accident because you might just not know it. You are much better of generally describing the pain that you are experiencing and reminding the adjuster that you are not sure what your injuries are as you didn't undergo a full medical evaluation yet.
3. Lying to your attorney. I met clients who would hide the fact that they had prior injuries and accidents until the other side found out about their medical past. I have been sent video tapes that captured my client working at a physically demanding job while claiming that he was severally injured, unable to perform any work and was unemployed. To say the least, it is an uncomfortable situation for an lawyer to find out a certain fact about his client from the opposing counsel. At a minimum, an inconsistent verbal or written statement can be clarified as a misunderstanding or some kind of inadvertent omission. In many cases, however, an untruthful material statement by a client will cast serious doubt on that client’s credibility and can seriously hurt his / her chances to recover the settlement or the judgment that he / she deserves because it can be used to impeach the client at subsequent trial proceedings. Thus, lying on a deposition under oath can be fatal to your case.
The bottom line is this - be as truthful with your lawyer as you can. And if you don’t remember something, just say so. There is no harm in saying “I don’t remember” especially if that’s truly the case. Arkady Itkin, Esq.
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