Premises Liability
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San Diego Premises Liability Attorney
San Diego is a nearly perfect place to live or visit if you enjoy spending time outdoors and a dynamic place to live or visit if you prefer to spend your days indoors. From stunning parks and beaches to the Gaslamp Quarter, land to hike, stores to frequent, and boats to sail, it’s unusually tough to suffer boredom in San Diego unless you’re not in a position to move around freely. Unfortunately, it’s surprisingly easy to suffer injuries while visiting San Diego’s many attractions, retail outlets, and restaurants. Whether you’ve been recently injured while visiting private property or public property, it’s important to understand that you’re not alone in your experience and you have rights as an injury victim under the law.
Premises liability accidents are seldom discussed in American popular culture. However, they happen with startling frequency and too often change victims’ lives in profoundly negative ways. Perhaps because these kinds of legal claims are discussed and reported on too infrequently, all too often, injury victims assume the financial burdens resulting from their injuries because they assume that they have no grounds upon which to file a legal claim. In reality, California’s broad protections afforded to injury victims mean that if you’ve been harmed by a condition of another’s public or private property, you may be entitled to significant compensation as a result of your injuries. Don’t make assumptions about the potential strengths or weaknesses of your legal situation until you’ve attended a free consultation with our legal team and received knowledgeable guidance tailored to your unique circumstances.
Trustworthy Legal Guidance for Injury Victims Harmed on Another’s Property
Premises liability is a complex area of civil law concerned with the rights of injury victims who have sustained harm – at least to a substantial degree – as a result of a condition of another’s private or public property. Not every
personal injury law firm handles these claims, as they generally require significant attention to detail, a legal strategy that is highly contextual, and a client-focused approach. Our firm doesn’t shy away from complex premises liability cases. On the contrary, we have developed a reputation for providing quality, comprehensive legal services for premises liability injury victims. We take great pride in successfully representing the interests of those who have been affected by injurious premises-related circumstances. Please connect with our experienced, knowledgeable, dedicated, and trustworthy
legal team today to schedule a free, risk-free, confidential consultation so that you can learn more about both your legal options and our firm’s approach to representation.
Premises Liability – The Basics
Property owners owe their visitors – and even, in some cases, trespassers – a specific “duty of care” under the law. Depending on the nature of the property in question and what that property is generally used for, property owners must maintain their property to varying degrees of safety. For example, if a retail management team is aware that there is a leak in the ceiling, they must take proper precautions to protect their patrons from slipping on any water that may hit the floor before it can be adequately mopped and dried. Failure to maintain one’s property to the degrees mandated by law leaves property owners vulnerable to legal action in the event that someone is harmed by an inadequately addressed safety condition on the property itself.
With that said, not every safety hazard present on someone’s property serves as grounds for a successful property liability suit. Say that the management team of a retail box store had no way of knowing that a child had dropped a sippy cup and the contents of that cup had spilled on the floor of “Aisle Three.” Before anyone can reasonably alert management to the spill’s occurrence, a patron slips on the contents of the cup and suffers an injury. While unfortunate, it is unlikely that the injured patron has a cause of action against the store, provided that the flooring was otherwise up to code and well maintained. This is because most successful premises liability claims must prove that the property owner owed the injury victim some kind of “duty of care” under the law and breached that duty – generally through reckless, negligent, or intentionally dangerous conduct. It must also generally be proven that the victim’s injuries resulted directly from that breach.
Note that there are some scenarios in which “strict liability” and other legal theories that take exception to this general formula of taking reasonable care in the use and/or maintenance of one’s property do come into play within the context of premises liability law. As a result, it’s important to refrain from assuming that you do or do not have a cause for legal action before you’ve explained your situation to our legal team in a free consultation setting and received an objective analysis of your case accordingly.
Common Premises Liability Case Types
Individuals are harmed by the conditions of others’ property in a surprising number of ways. This is one of the reasons why premises liability cases tend to be so complex. Even the most common kind of premises liability accidents – slip and fall – do not unfold in exactly the same ways. Context matters when it comes to filing a successful premises liability claim. Some of the most common reasons why premises liability lawsuits are filed in California include:
- Amusement park injuries
- Defective conditions present on an owner’s property
- Defective flooring
- Defective staircases
- Dog bites and other animal attacks
- Elevator and escalator injuries
- Fire
- Flooding
- Inadequate property maintenance
- Inadequate security that leads to opportunity for assault or other injury
- Parking lot hazards
- Slip and fall injuries
- Swimming pool injuries
- Trip and fall injuries
- Toxic exposure to fumes, chemicals, or other hazardous substances
Holding Others Accountable for Premises Injuries
Different “kinds” of property owners may be held accountable for using their property for unsafe purposes or failing to maintain their property safely to a reasonable degree. Depending on your unique circumstances, you may be in a position to hold a residential homeowner, commercial property owner, commercial property manager, business, school district, municipality, nonprofit organization, or any other property-owning legal entity responsible for the harm you’ve suffered.
When determining whether a named defendant in a premises liability case may be held legally responsible for an injury victim’s harm,
California jurors are given specific instructions as to the standards that must be met before a plaintiff can be awarded damages. Jurors are instructed to determine whether:
The defendant “owned/leased/occupied/controlled” the property and
The defendant was negligent in the use or maintenance of the property and
The plaintiff was harmed; and
The defendant’s negligence was a substantial factor in causing the plaintiff’s harm.
Holding Others Accountable for Premises Injuries
If you have been contacted by your own insurance carrier or by other insurance carriers representing the policy interests of others involved in your crash, avoid returning their calls for a day or two until you’ve attended your free consultation with our firm
Insurance providers are profitable enterprises, so they guard their bottom line when they can. If an
insurance representative can use something you’ve said as an excuse to devalue or reject your claim, they will. As a result, it’s generally a good idea to allow us to negotiate on your behalf.
When Injury Victims Are Partially at Fault for their Harm
Too often, premises liability injury victims fail to file legal action against the property owners responsible for their harm because they don’t understand that they have grounds for legal action, they assume that their case is weak and therefore not worth pursuing, or that their partial contribution to the harm they’ve sustained has rendered them ineligible to hold others responsible for their influence in the injurious circumstances in question.
As previously noted, premises liability injury victims often have far stronger cases to make than they may initially believe that they do. As a result, they should refrain from dismissing the opportunity to pursue compensation until they’ve had their case evaluated by a knowledgeable attorney. One of the reasons why this is true involves a legal theory known as “comparative negligence.” In so-called “contributory negligence” states, if an injury victim at-all contributed to the cause(s) of their harm, they may be barred from holding other responsible parties accountable under the law. However, California rejects this interpretation of injury victims’ rights. Instead, California law embraces a comparative theory of negligence.
Under the comparative negligence theory, you remain entitled to hold negligent, reckless, or intentionally dangerous property owners liable for their contributions to the cause(s) of your harm, even if you also behaved in ways that led to the cause(s) of your injuries. If it is determined that you are partially at fault for what happened to you, the total compensation amount that you’d otherwise be entitled to collect will be reduced by the percentage of fault assigned to you. For example, if the value of your harm is valued at $100,000 and you are 30 percent at fault for your injuries, you’ll remain entitled to seek up to $70,000 in damages from others responsible for your harm. Therefore, even if you are partially to blame for your circumstances, it remains important that you explore your legal options before dismissing the idea that you may be entitled to significant compensation at this time.
Considerations if You Were Injured While on the Job
Note that if you sustained injuries while you were engaged in work-related activity (whether you were working on your employer’s property or not at the time), you may be eligible to receive workers’ compensation benefits as a result of the harm you have suffered. If you are properly classified as an independent contractor or you work for a very small company that is exempt from workers’ compensation requirements, you are likely ineligible to receive this particular form of compensation. However, if you’re classified as a full-time or part-time employee, chances are good that you’re entitled to these benefits, regardless of the circumstances that led to your injuries.
As California has a no-fault workers’ compensation system, unless you were drunk, high, or aiming to get hurt in order to engage in workers’ compensation fraud, you are almost certainly entitled to workers’ compensation benefits provided that you were acting in service of your job at the time that you were injured. If you are unsure of your workers’ compensation eligibility status, please alert our team to this concern during your free consultation so that we can clarify it for you.
Contact Our Firm Today for a Free Case Evaluation
You don’t need to know with any degree of certainty that you have strong grounds to file legal action before scheduling a free, risk-free, confidential consultation with our legal team. Understanding the nuances of premises liability law is our job.
Once we learn about the circumstances that led to your injuries, we’ll be able to explain how the law applies to your situation and what legal options are available to you at this time. Should you be entitled to any compensation, our team will build the strongest possible case on your behalf in order to better ensure that you receive the maximum amount of compensation to which you are owed under the law. Investing an hour or so of your time to explore your legal options may significantly impact this challenging time in your life for the better. Please connect with our team today to schedule your no-cost case evaluation. We look forward to speaking with you.
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