This is Kentucky Injury Lawyer Tate Meagher with Meagher Injury Lawyers. Slip and fall and trip and fall cases can be tricky. To win a case like this, it’s crucial to have the necessary evidence to prove liability against the property owner of the property in which you fell. I’ve handled countless fall cases over the years. For several years after I got out of law school, I worked on behalf of insurance companies defending fall cases in court. For the last several years, though, I’ve represented the Davids of the world against the Goliath insurance companies and corporate defendants, doing what I love in advocating for injury victims.
In this video, I’ll be discussing what is needed to win a slip and fall or trip and fall case.
1. Understand the Insurance Company’s Strategy
First, don’t expect that the insurance company or large corporation you are dealing with will make you a fair offer. The insurance company or large corporation you are dealing with for a slip and fall or trip and fall case is a business looking to minimize the amount they have to pay out to injury victims.
2. File a Lawsuit Before the Statute of Limitations Expires
In Kentucky, the state where I practice law, you only have one year from the date of your fall to file a lawsuit. This may seem like a lot of time, but it’s not when it comes to an injury case. A lawyer or insurance adjuster oftentimes won’t even know the accurate value of your case until after a year if you sustained significant injuries. That’s because it’s nearly impossible to determine the value of a case until an injury victim is either done treating or reached maximum medical improvement. So don’t wait around expecting the insurance company to make you a fair offer. Take action much sooner than that.
3. Prove the Property Owner Was Negligent
To make a significant financial recovery in your case, your fall must have occurred on another’s property. You must prove that the property owner or anyone with control over the property was negligent. Just because you fell and were injured somewhere does not mean the property owner is at fault. You must show that the property owner breached a duty of care they owed to you.
How to Prove Negligence:
- Duty to Inspect: Business owners of grocery stores, retail stores, restaurants, hotels, or any similar business that invites the public into their business have a duty to inspect for slipping or tripping hazards on the business premises.
- Failure to Remedy: If they act unreasonably by failing to discover or remedy a defective condition on the property and you sustain a fall due to the defective condition, you may be entitled to a financial recovery against the business.
4. Gather and Preserve Evidence
- Photographs: It is crucial for you or a loved one to take photographs of the defective condition as soon after your fall as possible. Take photographs of the condition that caused your fall.
- Report the Fall: Report your fall to a manager at the business and get the contact information for any witnesses to your fall.
- Preservation Letter: Send a preservation letter to the at-fault party or company in your case. A preservation letter in a slip-and-fall case is a letter sent to the at-fault party in order to request that they preserve any evidence related to the accident. This can include witness statements, surveillance footage that may have captured the fall on camera, and any other relevant materials.
5. Understand the Challenges
Slip and fall or trip and fall cases can be difficult cases to win. There’s a good chance the company where you fell, or their insurance company, will fight your claim hard and not offer you a fair amount. It could be the case that you must file a lawsuit in order to get a fair value for your injury claim.
6. Consult with an Injury Lawyer
I highly encourage you to consult with an injury lawyer as soon as possible following your injury so you are aware of your legal options with regard to your injury claim.
I hope that you have found this video to be helpful. To learn more about the ins and outs of personal injury law, please subscribe to my YouTube channel and watch more of my videos. Lastly, if you are injured due to a fall on another person’s property or business property in Kentucky, remember: don’t wait, call Tate.
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