People injured because of a slip and fall accident may be legally entitled to fair compensation for their injuries. Nevertheless, slip and fall personal injury claims can be among the most difficult claims to pursue.
Contrary to a commonly held belief, if you are a social guest and slip and fall on someone else’s property, neither they nor their insurance are liable simply because you were on the other person’s property. For the property-owner to be responsible for your injuries takes more than your mere presence on the property when you were injured.
An injured social guest must prove a dangerous condition caused the injury. The social guest must also prove that the property owner knew (or should have known) about the dangerous condition. Additionally, the injured social guest must prove that the owner should anticipate that the social guest would not discover or realize the dangerous condition.
A recent Court of Appeals decision illustrates this. Our law firm was not involved in this case. A social guest was visiting a friend. The social guest testified that she had noticed a steep driveway, and had a sense that the single concrete step in front of a gate ‘didn’t look safe’ at the end of the ‘sharp driveway.’ The trial court dismissed the social guest’s personal injury lawsuit (again, not one of our cases). The social guest appealed, but the Court of Appeals upheld the trial court’s dismissal.[1]
For business guests the rules a bit different, but even customers injured inside a business face tough legal hurdles to prove their personal injury claim.
We are selective about which cases we accept, but we have had success with slip and fall claims and would be happy to review your case if you have been injured in a slip and fall accident
[1] Akin v. McKelvey, unpublished opinion (No. 75725-3-I February 5, 2018).