California Personal Injury Lawyers Blog
Many Los Angeles residents come to our office for injuries they have suffered in a slip and fall incident. These claims are very difficult, but certain key things that you, the victim, can do after the incident, can help get you a recovery for someone else’s negligence.
Just because you have fallen on someone else’s property does not mean that the owner of the premises, or its operator, is responsible. In order to prove that the premises owner/operator is responsible, you must be able to prove that either they created the hazard that caused you to slip and fall, or that they should have known about it and did not fix it.
The first scenario is simple, if a store employee spills a bottle of soda, leaves without cleaning it, and you slip and fall on the soda, that element is met. However, what if you do not know how the soda you slipped on got onto the floor? One thing you should do if you find yourself in such a situation is take pictures of the hazard that caused you to fall. Report the incident to a manager and make sure the manager takes down an incident report. Also, you should try to find any witnesses that saw the fall, saw how the hazard got onto the floor, or know how long the hazard has been on the floor.
One way our office has successfully shown that the store should have known about the hazard, is by obtaining copies of the store’s “sweep sheets,” which show how frequently the store employees maintained and checked the aisles for hazards. If the aisles are not checked in a reasonable amount of time, the store may be responsible.
Using these tactics, our office has successfully handled countless slip and fall cases throughout the greater Los Angeles area. If you have been injured on someone else’s premises in the greater Los Angeles area, including Van Nuys, North Hollywood, Calabasas, Encino, etc., and think you may have a slip and fall injury claim, call our office for a free consultation, 866-INJURY-2.