Wet Floors and Slip and Fall Premises Liability Cases
When you legally enter upon someone else’s property, the owner and manager of that property are obligated to make it reasonably safe for you to do so. Any potential hazards to your safety that do exist must be either made inaccessible to general traffic or clearly indicated with easily seen warning signs. If the owner or manager of the property fails in his or her duty to protect you from hazards, and you are injured as a result, you may be entitled to collect damages covering the losses and expenses you sustain as a result.
The experienced, highly trained and knowledgeable personal injury attorneys of Younker Hyde Macfarlane, PLLC have extensive experience in handling slip and fall and other premises liability cases. If you were injured anywhere in Utah, including Salt Lake City, due to wet floors, your premises liability claim will be in excellent hands when you turn to our exceptionally skilled law team.
Wet Floors and Negligence
As with any personal injury claim, our premises liability attorneys must be able to demonstrate that the owner or manager of the property on which you had your slip and fall accident acted negligently in failing to protect you from the wet floor. This means that we must show that:
- The party in question owed you a duty of care, namely safe conditions while on their premises and clear warnings of potential hazards;
- The party in question failed to take proper precautions to shield you from a potential hazard, specifically liquid that had spilled on the floor;
- You could not have reasonably foreseen this hazard and therefore slipped and fell on the wet floor;
- As a result of your accident, you sustained injuries with associated losses and expenses;
- Your injures could have been avoided if the responsible party had exercised the care that a reasonable person would have under the same circumstances; and
- Therefore, the party responsible for the safe maintenance of the premises is liable for the losses and expenses related to your injury.
It is important to note that not all slip and fall accidents are necessarily grounds for premises liability claims. The entrant upon a property must exercise reasonable judgment and vigilance, especially in publicly accessible places such as supermarkets. For example, if a shopper in a supermarket sees a large puddle of dark-colored liquid on a linoleum floor, yet he or she walks directly into the puddle and slips and falls, there is a good chance that he or she will be held responsible for the injury due to his or her poor judgment. Likewise, if there are clearly posted signs warning shoppers of the spill, and he or she sees the signs but ignores them, the owner or manager of the store may not be held responsible.
At this point, however, it is not wise to evaluate your own case. Leave it to the personal injury lawyers of Younker Hyde Macfarlane, PLLC. Simply contact our law firm today, and we will arrange for an evaluation of your potential premises liability case.
