Slip + Fall Accidents

The legal standard for liability in New York for a  New York slip and fall attorney to know is that  there has to be a duty of care that is owed to the injured person. The duty of care is owed by someone like a manager or a property owner or a tenant, that would depend on the particular circumstances of the case, including you know, a store owner, a retail store, or an operator, or a building owner. The second thing is that that person should have noticed the hazard that caused the injury. There’s two levels of notice here. The first level is actual notice, which means they actually knew about the hazard. The second is that they had constructive notice, and constructive notice is that they should have known about the hazard under the circumstances. This is a fact intensive test that depends on the facts and circumstances of the particular case and environment. Another way that the defendant should have or could have known about the hazard is if they created the condition themselves for example by negligent maintenance, negligent construction, or negligent cleaning. This is why I’m sure you’ve seen the orange or yellow triangle wet  floor signs.

The next thing that your New York slip and fall attorney should know with respect to the legal standard is that the dangerous condition,  which we’ve referred to above as hazard, has to be unreasonably dangerous, and this is not something that would under the circumstances simply occur normally,  like a tiny defect or some trivial issue like an imperfection or something to that effect.

This raises the issue of a trivial defect doctrine. This is a doctrine that causes cases to be dismissed if the defect is merely trivial. An example of a trivial defect is something that is too small for example,  in the case of a sidewalk,  where there is a minor deviation in sidewalk height.  Another example is where there are small height differentials or hairline cracks in a sidewalk.

Your New York slip and fall attorney should also know that proving notice is very very important. Some even say that proving notice is everything. In order to do that, it’s important to have surveillance footage and understand the laws that are related to surveillance footage.   It’s also important to have cleaning and maintenance logs, which track in detail the amount of cleaning and maintenance that was actually performed as well as maintenance under any particular circumstances and within any particular time periods.   Notice is also established by employee testimony, for example, if an employee had experienced a similar occurrence previously and can testify to that,  to an extent sufficient to establish the defendant had prior knowledge. notice is so important that without proving notice, these cases are almost always dismissed.

The snow in progress rule is also an important rule for a New York slip and fall attorney to know. This rule basically says that while the storm or weather is currently in progress, the defendant cannot be held liable. There has to be a reasonable amount of time that has passed after the storm has stopped and ordered for the defendant to clear the snow or the ice. The defendant can nevertheless be held liable if the defendant failed to properly clear the snow or the hazardous condition by arranging for poor drainage or letting the area refreeze.

When you contact your attorney make sure that you have every piece of evidence possible and ready so that you can give it to your New York zip and fall attorney so that they will be able to address it, put it in the file and then maximize your potential for recovery.

You should also know that recovery in the commercial contacts can be different from recovery in the residential context. Typically, in the commercial context,  there is a higher standard of care. and this makes sense because businesses invite people and customers to come on to their property and they are expecting those people to come into and on to their property so it may make sense then to hold them to a higher standard. Of course the policy here is that we wouldn’t want to have commercial properties held to a lower standard because then consumers and customers would always be on edge that there could be some hazard that would affect their time there and might harm them and that would decrease quality of life substantially particularly in those environments. It also makes sense in the commercial contacts because commercial businesses that are inviting people to come and make purchases on their property typically have more resources than residences.   commercial establishments often also have cleaning logs and managers and cameras and they usually have better insurance coverage, which allows for better payouts for slip and fall accidents.

New York slip and fall cases also typically include Insurance companies, particularly where the accident happens in a commercial environment that has insurance coverage. So New York slip and fall attorneys should also have experience speaking with and dealing with and negotiating with insurance companies because they are a different breed of people, as are the attorneys that represent them, so it is sometimes an art form as opposed to a science in addressing and dealing with the insurance company so that we can extract the highest and best settlement for you, and avoid the expense, time, and heartache of having to go to trial.

Please give us a call. the lawyer James at 212-500-1891, our receptionists are standing by. We look forward to speaking with you. Thank you.