Indiana Slip and Fall Attorneys

People like to mock slip and fall lawsuits as petty litigation, but plaintiffs often suffer from incredibly serious injuries. When you are injured on someone else’s property, the property owner may be liable for your damages. The way your case unfolds will depend on how your slip and fall accident happened and your relationship with the defendant.

Slip and fall accidents happen when property owners fail to maintain safe conditions on their property. When property owners allow hazards to go unchecked, their guests may get hurt. Anything from a puddle of water on the floor to rickety stairs that need to be replaced may constitute a hazard. You should expect that the defendant will downplay the dangerousness of the premises or attempt to blame you for your injuries.

Do not feel embarrassed about filing a lawsuit for a slip and fall accident in Indiana. These kinds of cases have an unfair reputation for being petty. In reality, severely injured plaintiffs are seeking just compensation. Our Indiana slip and fall accident lawyers can help you get the compensation you deserve. Discuss your case in a free legal consultation with the team at Wruck Paupore. Call us today at (219) 322-1166.

Filing a Lawsuit for a Slip and Fall Accident in Indiana

A slip and fall accident is based around premises liability. Generally, whoever owns the property is responsible for keeping it safe for guests, customers, or others invited onto the property. These types of lawsuits are often based on a property owner’s negligence. The fact that your accident occurred on someone’s property may be enough to make them liable. However, a variety of details will be important to your case.

Most cases are filed against the owner of the property in question. In some cases, the owner is a private individual, and the property in question is their home or personal property. Other times, the defendant is a business owner, and the property is a store or business. Still other times, the defendant could be a public entity, organization, or municipality, and the property could be public, like a public park or sidewalk.

Defendants in premises liability cases may be held liable for a plaintiff’s injuries because their duty as property owners is to maintain their properties and ensure safety. Liability may extend to hazards that the defendant was aware of and those that they were unaware of but should reasonably have known about. Our Indiana slip and fall attorneys can help you hold a negligent property owner liable for your accident.

Proving Negligence in an Indiana Slip and Fall Case

Proving your case depends on your relationship with the defendant. Were you a social guest at a friend’s house or a customer in a retail store? Did the property owner invite you onto the property, or did you enter without permission? These are all factors that must be discussed with an attorney. Our Indiana slip and fall lawyers can discuss the details of your case and determine the best way to prove the defendant’s liability.

The duty of care owed by a property owner may vary based on the relationship between them and the injured plaintiff. Some plaintiffs are invited guests while others are not. However, not receiving a direct invite does not mean a person is trespassing. On the contrary, patrons of a business are usually free to come and go as they please without an invitation. The store owner still owes them a duty of care. Our Indiana slip and fall attorneys can help you prove that a negligent property owner is liable for your accident and injuries.

In general, a property owner has a duty to identify and repair any hazards on their property for the safety of others. For example, a store owner is tasked with ensuring customers will be safe walking about the store. If the floor is wet because of a burst pipe or leaky roof, the store owner must have the damage fixed and the hazard taken care of. In cases where a hazard cannot be remedied immediately, placing warnings or signs may suffice.

Trespassers and Slip and Fall Accidents in Indiana

Indeed, you do not necessarily need to have a direct invitation to legally enter someone else’s property. In many settings, an invitation is implied based on conduct or the relationship between the parties. However, when a person enters another’s property without permission, explicit or implicit, they may be considered a trespasser. Property owners owe no duty of care or safety to trespassers, so a trespasser cannot sue for a slip and fall accident.

Property owners can only be expected to make their property safe for people they know or should know will be on their property. It is unreasonable to ask property owners to consider uninvited people who may be on the property without the owner’s consent or knowledge.

However, if the trespasser in question was a child, the property owner may still be liable for a slip and fall or any other accident under the attractive nuisance doctrine. According to this rule, an attractive nuisance is something dangerous to children in a way that children will probably not understand. While the danger might be obvious to an adult, a child would not know any better. The nuisance is attractive because it could be expected to draw the attention of a child.

A property owner could be liable for a slip and fall suffered by a trespassing child if the owner permitted the dangerous property conditions or structure on the property, the owner knows that children may trespass, and the injury was a foreseeable result. An example of an attractive nuisance would be playground equipment that is old and unstable but has not been torn down. If your child was hurt on someone else’s property, our Indiana slip and fall attorneys can help.

Call Our Indiana Slip and Fall Lawyers

If you slipped and fell on someone else’s property, you deserve compensation for the property owner’s negligence. Speak with our Indiana slip and fall lawyers about your case in a free, confidential legal consultation. Call the offices of Wruck Paupore at (219) 322-1166 to get help.