Store Owners are Required to Maintain Their Floors |
Posted: May 26, 2017 |
In Florida, if you have been injured due to a slip-and-fall accident in a store, restaurant or other business establishment, you may be entitled to recover damages as compensation for your various injuries. Under premises liability (common) law, the owner may be found liable for your injuries if you can show that there was a dangerous condition on the property that posed an unreasonable risk of harm to visitors, that the owner failed to correct the dangerous condition or warn visitors of its existence and that this dangerous condition substantially and directly contributed to your injuries. The application of law in situations involving business establishments and transitory substances that pose a slip and fall hazard — such as spilled liquid in a grocery store aisle — is fundamentally the same, though there are additional details that are worth noting as you begin the litigation process. Statutory Duty Imposed on Business Establishment Section 768.0755 of the Florida Statutes identifies and imposes a premises liability-based statutory duty on business establishments with regard to transitory foreign substances (i.e., spills, leaks, etc.) that could create a slip and fall hazard to visitors. Slip-and-fall plaintiffs therefore have both a statutory and common law basis from which to assert their various premises liability claims. If you slipped and injured yourself due to a transitory foreign substance, then you’ll have to prove — in accordance with section 768.0755 — that the business establishment: 1) Had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition 2) That the establishment should have taken action to remedy the dangerous condition The terminology can seem rather complicated at first, but in reality, these concepts are quite simple. Let’s break it down. Actual Knowledge To show actual knowledge, you’ll have to demonstrate that the defendant was aware of the existence of the dangerous condition (the transitory foreign substance). For example, if the manager of a grocery store was fully aware that there was a water spill in one of the store aisles, that would constitute actual knowledge. Constructive Knowledge In many cases, there is no direct evidence that the defendant was aware of the existence of the dangerous condition. You can still hold the defendant liable for your injuries, however, so long as you show that the defendant had constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition. Section 768.055(1) concisely explains what is needed to satisfy this element. To prove constructive knowledge, you will have to show that: 1) The dangerous condition (i.e., the transitory foreign substance) existed for such a length of time that the business establishment should have known of the condition; or 2) The condition occurred with regularity and was therefore foreseeable. The length of time necessary for constructive knowledge depends on the industry of the business establishment and on expectations established by prior incidents. For example, hourly inspections by food court staff might be too infrequent, particularly if more frequent inspections are common in the industry or if there have already been a number of slip and fall incidents at the food court due to the frequency of inspections. If spills occur regularly (for example, if a fast food restaurant notes that there are regular spills around the self-service soda fountain), then any new spills are arguably foreseeable and constructive knowledge is established. After you prove the defendant’s knowledge (actual or constructive), you’ll have to show that circumstances were such that the defendant should have remedied the dangerous condition. Not all remedies require an immediate correction, of course. Though the defendant may attempt to argue that they did not have time to clean up a particular spill or leak, that argument will likely be unsuccessful. In reality, the defendant could have simply put up warning signs to prevent visitors, such as yourself, from walking close to the slip and fall hazard. A slip and fall hazard must be remedied to prevent injuries to visitors, whether the remedy is corrective in nature (i.e., cleaning a spill), or a warning. Contact Randall Spivey as soon as possible to speak with a skilled Fort Myers slip and fall accident attorney at the Spivey Law Firm, Personal Injury Attorneys, P.A. We will provide a free and confidential consultation to discuss your legal rights.
|
|||||||||||||||||||
|