Recently, this blog discussed some of the most common causes of so-called ‘slip and fall’ accidents on Connecticut properties. Between items left on the floor of businesses to poor lighting or wet or icy surfaces, there is no shortage of things that can cause a fall that lead to an injury. However, the mere fact of a fall occurring does not necessarily mean a property owner will be liable for it. One of the main questions to be answered in such cases is whether the property owner was at fault for the incident.
While this question can become very complicated legally, there are some basic premises we can elucidate with regard to this process. First, the cause of the fall needs to have been a ‘dangerous condition’, which is a condition that creates an unreasonable risk to a person entering or moving about the property. Further, the condition must have not been one that the injured person would have anticipated under the specific conditions present. Basically, an owner may not be liable if the dangerous condition was open and obvious to people present.
If there was a dangerous condition, then it must be shown that the owner or his agents, such as employees of the business, knew or should have known about the condition and did not remedy it. Generally, this is done by producing evidence that the owner or his agents created the condition, actually knew of the condition and did not take steps to remedy it or that the condition had been there for such a length of time that a reasonable person would have realized its existence and corrected it.
Of course, there’s also the requirement that the injury suffered was a kind that would be reasonably foreseeable as being caused by the condition in question. As can be seen, having evidence to prove these propositions may become complicated in premises liability cases, and there are many arguments a property owner may use to attempt to avoid liability. Connecticut residents injured in a slip and fall accident may wish to consider employing the services of an experienced injury attorney.
