When you or a loved one has been a victim of negligence causing a slip and fall accident in Rhode Island, you may try to seek justice for this accident through a lawsuit. You will have to prove your injuries and that your injuries were caused by the mishap. In some situations, it is enough to prove that a preexisting condition was exacerbated as a result of the fall. Utilizing a RI slip and fall lawyer, you will have to prove your case to a judge and jury and have them rule in your favor to win.
Rhode Island Slip and Fall Lawyer
In many circumstances, the insurance company will attempt to settle the RI premises liability cause of action out of court. If you were injured in a slip and fall incident in Rhode Island then you should contact one of the best Rhode Island slip and fall attorneys. What are the steps to prove to win your Providence Superior Court slip and fall injury claim? Today we will be covering what must be proved.
Property Owner Duty to Provide Safe Environment
A property owner in Rhode Island should always be aware of trying to make his property accident free. Property owners must take reasonable steps to ensure their property is free from dangerous conditions that could cause a person to slip and fall. However, visitors , customers and guests must also be careful and aware of their surroundings so that they avoid a slip down and fall on a property.
The Supreme Court of Rhode Island (RI) stated “[A] landowner has a duty to exercise reasonable care for the safety of persons reasonably expected to be on the premises, and that duty includes an obligation to protect against the risks of a dangerous condition existing on the premises, provided the landowner knows of, or by the exercise of reasonable care would have discovered, the dangerous condition. The burden of proving that sufficient evidence existed to show that the defendants knew or should have known of an unsafe condition on their premises is on the plaintiff.” Lieberman v. Bliss-Doris Realty Associates
Liability for Slip and Fall Claims
When you slip and fall on someone’s property because of dangerous conditions, you will need to be able to show some proof of your injuries by:
- The Rhode Island property owner or his staff should have known about the the state of the area because another reasonable individual in their place would have known about that specific area and tried to fix it or put a warning up while it was trying to be fixed.
- The property owner did know about the dangerous condition, but showed negligence and didn’t make any effort to fix it in a reasonable amount of time.
- The property owner or their employees caused the dangerous, problematic area by the means of a spill, broken floor, leak or another method.
Many non commercial property owners, are slip shod and reckless about the maintenance of their properties. Nonetheless, the property owner or maintenance company will typically deny liability asserting that they acted reasonably and that they they were not aware of the defective or dangerous condition on their property.
Reasonable Person
When you present, your evidence to show how a property owner is liable for the injuries sustained when you slipped and fell you will have to show how the property owner was negligent in their actions. Your Rhode Island slip and fall lawyer will have to prove how a reasonable person should have acted in that situation. A Providence County Superior Court jury would decide if the defendant had acted as a reasonable person in light of the facts and circumstances of the negligence case.
To help your RI personal injury attorneys win your Rhode Island premises liability claim, you might want to help your East providence Tort attorney with some of the following facts about your case and the property owner.
- Did your slip and fall accident involve tripping over something that was left on the floor that should not have been there?
- What kinds of cleaning activities did the property owner engage in and how often did occur? Is there proof to help support your claim?
- If someone was with you, did they see where you slipped? If so, did they see anything on the floor, did they have any pictures possibly on a cell phone or tablet? Do you have any other witnesses?
- If the slip and fall were caused by a leak in the roof, did the property owner allow a normal amount of time before being fixed or was it left in its condition for days, weeks or months?
- Were you being careful and watching out for your surroundings or were you comparatively negligent?
700,000 patients a year are hospitalized because of a fall injury
” One out of five falls causes a serious injury such as broken bones or a head injury. Each year, 2.5 million older people are treated in emergency departments for fall injuries. Over 700,000 patients a year are hospitalized because of a fall injury, most often because of a head injury or hip fracture. Each year at least 250,000 older people are hospitalized for hip fractures.More than 95% of hip fractures are caused by falling,6 usually by falling sideways. Falls are the most common cause of traumatic brain injuries (TBI). Adjusted for inflation, the direct medical costs for fall injuries are $34 billion annually. Hospital costs account for two-thirds of the total.” Center Disease Control Home and Recreational Safety Important Facts about Falls
Conclusion
If you want to prove your Warwick, Cranston or Woonsocket RI slip and fall case and win, you need to have proof that a property owner was not reasonable within the terms of that definition. You want to have a good Rhode Island slip and fall attorney who is on your side who takes into account all the proof and proves to the jury and judge that a property owner was negligent.
Legal Notice per Rules of Professional Responsibility: The Rhode Island Supreme Court licenses all lawyers and attorneys in the general practice of law, but does not license or certify any lawyer / attorney as an expert or specialist in any field of practice. While this firm maintains joint responsibility, most cases of this type are referred to other attorneys for principle responsibility.