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Completing Paperwork For Your Personal Injury Case

3 Things You Need To Know About Slip-And-Fall Lawsuits

22 February 2017

Christopher Wilson

Slip-and-fall cases are fairly common in personal injury lawsuits. This is when someone sues a business or another individual because they had a slip and fall on their property. Although these may seem straightforward, there are some things that have to be proven first, and without these factors you will not get the outcome that you want from the lawsuit. Here are some things you should know.

1. The Guilty Party Issued No Warning

When you own property and you know it is dangerous to walk on it, you need to issue some sort of warning. If there is ice on the sidewalk coming in you should put up a sign that says "watch for ice" or something of the like. In addition, when the floors are wet from a spill, or recently mopped, you should put up a sign that warns people of the wet floor. There are big yellow signs that most people use.

If there was a warning that the ground was slippery and you chose to walk on the surface, you assumed the risk and the guilty party cannot be held responsible for your fall. It is only when the owner of the property failed to warn people that it becomes likely for a lawsuit.

2. There Was No Reasonable Way of Knowing It Was Slippery

Second, even if the owner didn't put up a sign saying that it was slippery, you still may not have good grounds for a personal injury lawsuit. For example, if you just had an ice storm the night before, then you went to the store and slipped in the parking lot, this most likely will not be blamed on the owner of the store. This is because any reasonable person would have known that the ground was slippery, and once again you assumed the risk of walking on a slippery surface.

3. The Injured Person Must Do What They Can To Mitigate The Injuries

Lastly, once you have the injury you need to do everything you can to mitigate the problem, this means fix the problem. If it is determine that you purposefully made the problem worse than it needed to be, or didn't take the necessary steps to get yourself help and get yourself better, you cannot blame that on the owner of the property. This is why you should do what you can to protect yourself, and then if there are still outstanding bills for your injuries, then talk to an attorney about filing a lawsuit.

By understanding these things you can determine if a slip-and-fall lawsuit is merited. For more information, visit websites like http://www.grdlaw.com/.

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