Flushing, NY Slip and Fall Lawyer
If you are visiting a business or property owned by others and you have a slip and fall accident on that property, you may be able to recover in court for any injuries you have suffered. However, filing claims with their insurance could leave you with only some of your damages paid.
In many cases, you will need to go to court to get full compensation for your injuries, and our attorneys can help with that. In court, you will need to prove that the defendant was responsible for your injuries before the court can award damages – and our lawyers can present the evidence and arguments necessary to help you.
Call The Carrion Law Firm at (718) 841-0083 today for a free case evaluation with our slip and fall attorneys.
What Your Lawyers Need to Prove in Your Flushing, Queens Slip and Fall Accident Case
Specific facts and evidence will be convincing to the jury in your injury case, as the more accurate details you provide, the more credible you appear. This is especially helpful if your statements to a jury are consistent with what you have always told other people about your accident. However, there are some specific things that your testimony and other evidence will have to prove before you can get the compensation you need. Our slip and fall accident attorneys can help prove all of these important elements, with special care and attention paid to the following elements:
The Defendant’s Duty
A plaintiff must prove that a defendant owed the plaintiff a duty of care under the law. In most slip and fall cases, the duty the defendant owes the victim comes about because the owner of the property is responsible for the safety and security of guests on their property. In the case of guests and customers arriving at a business, the business must make sure that the premises are safe and that floors are clean and free of debris that might injure patrons. In a home and on the sidewalk outside a property (whether residential or commercial), similar duties exist.
Causation
You need to be very specific about the details of your accident in order to show that the defendant’s carelessness was indeed the cause of your injuries, despite the defendant’s claims to the contrary.
To recover compensation in a slip and fall case, the plaintiff must demonstrate that the defendant’s conduct is what actually caused of the plaintiff’s injuries. The defendant will often attempt to claim otherwise and argue that something else caused the plaintiff’s injuries or that the plaintiff caused their own injuries. Even if there was some alternate cause or intervening event, if the defendant’s actions were still at least a partial cause of the accident, they can be held liable for their share of the damages.
Generally, with slip and fall accidents, the danger itself does not need to be something that the property owner caused. However, it must be something that they failed to warn you about or clean up.
Notice of a Dangerous Condition
It is helpful to your claim to be able to show that the defendant had “actual notice” or “constructive notice” of a dangerous condition. To show actual notice, you must show that that the owner already knew about the dangerous condition. For constructive notice, you must show that the condition was something they should have discovered the danger through reasonable precautions.
As an example, imagine you are shopping in a grocery store and a person spills a jug of milk on the floor. If you were walking immediately behind them and you slip in the puddle, the store is likely not responsible (though the shopper might be). Here, the store had no time to learn about the spill and would not have been able to reasonably warn you or clean up the spill in time to prevent your injury.
On the other hand, if a grocery store worker was informed about a spilled jug of milk at noon, and you slipped in the puddle at 1 o’clock, the store had actual notice of the spill and should reasonably have cleaned it up or warned customers about it before you fell.
Intervening Parties
You have to sue the right party in a slip and fall case. A defendant might argue that there was another person or business at fault that caused the dangerous condition, so they should not be held liable. You should always have a lawyer look into which party you should be suing in your case, as sometimes someone other than the property owner will actually be the right party to sue. If there was no intervening third party, then our lawyers can attempt to shut down cases where defendants try to use this kind of defense.
As an example of this, imagine a scenario where the plaintiff slipped and fell in a snowy parking lot. Say the parking lot’s owner hired a snowplow company to clear the snow, but they left some ice behind and caused a patron to slip and fall and suffer serious injuries. In this case, there will be a question as to whether the business that owns the parking lot will be liable for the slip and fall or whether the snowplow company should be liable instead.
Proof of Damages
In order to get compensation in any injury case, you have to prove that you actually suffered injuries – possible or hypothetical injury claims are not allowed. In a slip and fall case, this means producing proof of the injuries themselves, such as photos from the scene, security footage of the fall, and witness testimony that they saw the injury happen. Proving the extent of your injuries will usually mean producing medical records, bills, financial statements, and other proof of the costs associated with your injury. In addition, your testimony and perhaps testimony from your family and doctors will be used to prove the non-economic damages you suffered, such as emotional distress, lost enjoyment of life, and pain and suffering.
Call Our Flushing Flip and Fall Attorneys Today
Please call The Carrion Law Firm at (718) 841-0083 today to speak to our slip and fall attorneys about your case in a free evaluation.