Businesses have a duty to the public and their customers to maintain safe premises at all times. When they fall short of this duty, it can lead to serious injury! This disregard for potentially hazardous conditions is called negligence, and negligence can be a very dangerous thing.
If you’ve slipped and fallen at a place of business or private property, should you call a Memphis slip and fall lawyer? Well, like so many other things in life, that depends! We’re here to help you know if you should call.
Should you call a Memphis slip and fall lawyer?
For any case to be viable, it needs to satisfy certain elements. All this means is that certain things have to happen for you to be eligible to recover compensation for your injury. If each of these things has happened to you, it’s definitely time to call a Memphis slip and fall lawyer!
1. You fell
This might seem obvious, but for you to have a slip and fall case, you must have fallen! Pretty self-explanatory, right?
However, did you know that even private property can qualify in a slip and fall case? If you are invited to enter private property, the property owner has a duty to protect guests from reasonable, foreseeable injury. If you have slipped, fallen, and injured yourself–no matter where–you might need to call a Memphis slip and fall lawyer.
2. You were injured
Simply slipping and falling isn’t enough to recover compensation; you must have suffered an injury. As with car wrecks, you must go to the doctor if you’re injured. A medical diagnosis is needed to support your case and serve as evidence of your injury. Without it, your chance of recovering any compensation is very low.
3. Someone else must be at fault
If you drop a grape in line at the grocery store and then slip and fall on it, breaking your hip, are you entitled to compensation? Nope. To recover compensation in a slip and fall case, there must be negligence at play. In other words, it must have been someone else’s fault–namely, the business or individual you’re making a claim against!
Examples of this sort of negligence might include: a leaking roof that led to a puddle on a slick floor, a hole on the grounds over which grass had grown, or even five grapes left on the floor in a grocery store for a couple hours!
Have you injured yourself at a business?
4. The business or individual had reasonable time to notice and fix the situation
Again with the grape example, if grapes are dropped on the floor by the family in line in front of you, and you immediately fall and injure yourself, is the business at fault? The answer is…likely not. The grocery store most likely did not have a reasonable amount of time to notice the spill and clean it up. Of course, the question of what is “reasonable” is a tricky one, so it’s always best to call a Memphis slip and fall lawyer if there is any uncertainty.
If you slip and fall on a property, and you believe that the business or property owners are at fault, speak with the business or property owner before you leave. They’re entitled to know what happened, and this statement will help your case in the long run. However, don’t give a recorded statement without an attorney present!
5. You know why you fell
It’s not enough to say you don’t know why you fell. To prove your slip and fall case, you need to know what caused the slip. You skidded on smushed grapes; you slipped on a puddle from the leaky roof; you fell into the hole over which grass had grown. Without knowing smushed grapes; you slipped on a puddle from the leaky roof; you fell into the hole over which grass had grown. Without knowing why, it will be impossible to prove your slip and fall case.
If you have slipped, fallen, and injured yourself, don’t worry about proving each of these elements before calling a Memphis slip and fall lawyer. Call now, and we’ll handle the legal details for you!