The slip and fall personal injury case is emblematic of the types of things that professional injury attorneys do for personal injury clients.
It's cited routinely as a specific type of personal injury case, because it provides a good example of the kinds of discovery and work that are required to really serve your client well, and get them the best results in a local court of law.
Here are three things that lawyers think about with slip and fall cases. As you read about these, they will apply to other kinds of personal injury cases as well.
Signage and Warnings
In any slip and fall personal injury case, where attorneys are looking at the idea of negligence, they will ask about whether signage or other warning installations were in place.
The simplest example of this is the ‘wet floor slip and fall.’ Someone mopped and cleaned the floor, and left it slippery as it dried. That's what those ‘wet floor/piso mojado’ signs are for – the big yellow kind that businesses buy routinely. If those were not placed, that's a big factor in this type of case.
Why It Happened
Then, also, in considering negligence, there's a difference between different types of slip and falls where a hazard could not have been avoided, and slip and fall cases where negligence was more clear-cut. In the above example, where someone mopped the floor, that person was deliberately creating the hazard. In other cases where the natural elements may contribute, or where vendor equipment was faulty, that may be out of the control of the business operator, and that has to go into the equation as the attorneys are doing discovery and working through the case.
Business Location
Here's another important thing in personal injury cases that people don't always think about when they're trying to work out the broad strokes of an injury case.
In a very key sense, location matters. Attorneys will be looking at exactly where the slip and fall occurred, whether it was in a parking lot, inside a building or elsewhere, to determine whether it was on a business property. This type of jurisdiction question can really come into play in a slip and fall or other personal injury case.
With all three of these criteria and other concerns, cases can become pretty complex. Some of us might think of a personal injury case as a simple thing – “X” happened, and now someone has costs. But it's rarely that simple – as discovery occurs, details turn up that will impact the process.
For more on all of the workings of personal injury cases, call Hutchison and Tubiana, an experienced firm with a great track record in the state of Florida.