All property owners have a responsibility to keep their premises safe for those who visit them. Trips, slips, and falls are rarely accidental. Instead, they most often occur because a property owner failed to properly maintain the site.
Falls most often occur when someone is walking on a slippery surface such as super glossy or recently-polished tiles or stone. In other cases, they happen where somebody spilled something, where rain got tracked in or because a building’s owner didn’t properly maintain his or her drainage system. Uneven elevations, surfaces pitted with holes and poorly-lit ones have the potential to cause injuries as well.
A building’s owner may also be sued for a visitor’s injuries if they prevent an individual from leaving easily. If an emergency exit is either not properly lit or the door to it is kept locked, then it may be understood that they restricted an individual’s departure. They can also be held liable if they don’t clearly post an evacuation plan or maintain their sprinkler or fire alarm system to code.
Property owners may be held liable for any injuries an individual suffers during a robbery if they fail to take certain precautions to prevent it from occurring. This includes not keeping the building and its parking lot well lit or shrubs trimmed.
It also may include failing to maintain a sign-in log, operate closed circuit security cameras on their premises, or not requiring the use of proximity badges to restrict an individual’s entry into secured areas. Property owners may even be held liable for a visitor’s injuries or death if they fail to regularly issue new key cards or review the latest crime statistics relevant to their location and industry in order to anticipate challenges.
If you’ve been injured on someone else’s premises, it’s important that you call for medical help right away. You should also take time to photograph or record video evidence from the scene as best as you can.
Documenting the names of anyone you speak with and obtaining a copy of the incident report are also critically important. It’s only after you do all this that you should look to speak with a Maricopa premises liability attorney who can discuss potential legal remedies available to you in your case.
Source: Travelers, “Premises Security and Liability,” accessed Aug. 11, 2017
