Premises liability cases can cover a wide range of incidents. These lawsuits can deal with an injury on a private residence or a commercial property. They can involve an invited guest, a customer or even a trespasser in the right circumstances. The most common scenario involves an individual injured at a commercial location and bringing suit against the business owner.
It’s one thing to be in an accident and to seemingly have an airtight case that it was the property owner’s fault, but it’s another thing to prove it in court. Discussions of how to prove premises liability center start with 2 key legal concepts—the duty of care and constructive notice.
Duty of care
The duty of care refers to the owner’s legal responsibility to take necessary precautions that will prevent people from being injured. There are circumstances where the violation of this duty is obvious. If the employee of a large store had just mopped an aisle and failed to leave notice that there’s a wet floor, it will be easy enough to prove that the business is responsible for a slip and fall.
But the responsibility of owners to take appropriate safety actions does not mean the law expects them to infallibly anticipate every mishap or that they must meet an impossibly high standard. This is where constructive notice comes in.
Constructive notice
Let’s say the wet floor the customer slipped on was actually caused by a spill from another patron. The business owner is only responsible for cleaning this up in a manner consistent with constructive notice.
A clear example of constructive notice would be an employee being told by a customer that there’s a spill in Aisle 9. It’s also expected that the store will be making reasonable efforts to ensure their aisles are clean.
If the spill happened at 10 in the morning and the accident took place at 4 in the afternoon, a court could reasonably consider the 6 hours of elapsed time to count as constructive notice—and rule in favor of the plaintiff.
Another way the courts might decide the business indirectly received constructive notice was if there were too few staff members on hand for the level of customer activity that was reasonably expected.
Let’s say you’ve established the above points to the court’s satisfaction. Are you home free with your lawsuit? Not yet. You still have to prove that you were actually injured by the fall and that the injury has caused you damage commensurate with the compensation you’re seeking.
Furthermore, the defendant may seek to prove that you are not without blame for the accident. Let’s return to our example where a spill happened in the morning and wasn’t cleaned up for 6 hours. Now let’s say that the spill came from a child who dumped their grape juice all over their store floor.
The defense will likely argue that a reasonable person who was looking where they were going would have noticed a pool of grape-colored fluid in the middle of the aisle. If the court agrees, then you’re back to being out of luck.
If you have a premises liability lawsuit, professional assistance is imperative. The best ways to solidify your case come with review of a store’s security video footage, calling in expert testimony, taking photos, reviewing incident reports and making certain the case is filed under the statute of limitations guidelines.