Articles Posted in Premises Liability

When you are injured on the property of someone else, that person or that person’s insurance company may be well-represented by attorneys, who stand ready to make clever arguments that creatively use the law to try to get the defendant out of paying you any compensation. To make sure you are equipped to succeed in your injury case, you need an experienced San Mateo premises liability attorney who knows the law well and knows how to advocate for you and get results.

What do we mean by “creative” uses of the law? Here’s an example. E.H. was a man working as a “site representative” giving tours of a notable architectural residence in Beverly Hills when he was hurt in the fall of 2014. During his fateful tour, the representative fell from a platform that was “suspended over a hillside.” The fall caused E.H. to suffer very serious injuries, including multiple spinal fractures, from which he allegedly suffered more than $2 million in damages.

E.H. sued. When you sue someone in civil court, you will present your evidence showing that the defendant was liable and that you suffered compensable harm. The defense will present its evidence, including bringing up any affirmative defenses, which are things that the defense affirmatively pleads and, if accepted by the jury, make the defendant not liable.

The law in California clearly obliges property owners/occupiers to keep their properties “reasonably safe.” As part of that duty, the law requires property owners/occupiers to inspect their properties and ascertain the condition of those properties. If a dangerous condition exists that would have been discovered as a result of a reasonable inspection, then the property owner/occupier is required by the law to fix it or to warn users of the property of its existence. If the owner doesn’t, and a guest on the property is injured, then that may give the injured person the opportunity to obtain compensation through a premises liability lawsuit. To learn more about this and other legal options possibly available to you, make certain you to contact a knowledgeable California injury attorney.

While many premises liability cases are slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall accidents, those are not the only varieties. For example, take the case of C.S. The facts that led to C.S.’s lawsuit sound like something that might come from a Hollywood horror movie. C.S. was out on a Napa County golf course in June 2013, taking a lesson from one of the club’s instructors. The golfer was preparing for a shot on the fifth hole when a swarm of yellow jackets attacked her. The instructor tried to swat the insects away, to no avail. The pair ran the length of one and one-half football fields before the yellow jackets stopped chasing and attacking. All told, the golfer got stung in excess of 50 times.

C.S. was transported to a nearby fire station. On the way, she began losing consciousness. Paramedics met her outside and gave her a shot. One paramedic declared that C.S. had been “within fifteen seconds” of dying. She spent the night in a hospital ICU and missed five weeks of work.

Premises liability lawsuits cases can include slip-and-fall accidents, trip-and-fall accidents and several other varieties of injuries suffered while a person was on the property of someone else. In many circumstances, slip-and-fall accidents may take place because the operator of a commercial business fails to keep its floors sufficiently clean. As a result, when you pursue a slip-and-fall injury accident case against a merchant, you have to show that the business’ policies and practices it had in place for inspecting and cleaning its floors were not reasonable. If you’ve suffered an injury in a slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall accident in Northern California, you should contact an experienced San Mateo injury attorney to provide you with representation in your case.

M.J. was a shopper injured in a slip-and-fall accident. M.J. was shopping at a discount supermarket when she allegedly slipped and fell due to a patch of liquid on the floor of the store. As a result, she sued the supermarket.

In this situation, as with many accident cases, expert witnesses can be an important component of the case. These individuals can often provide powerful evidence that, if the court finds it persuasive, will go a long way toward influencing the outcome. In M.J.’s case, the supermarket provided an expert who testified that the merchant’s system – which involved sweeping the floor once an hour – was a reasonable method for dealing with hazards like spilled liquids. M.J. also had an expert. The shopper’s expert testified that the store’s practices were not adequate and, on top of that, the store’s floor was unreasonably slippery when wet.

In any type of personal injury circumstance, there are several things of which you must be aware, and several “landmines” that you must be careful to avoid as they can destroy your case. Any time you are injured, an essential part of the process is identifying the person or entity responsible. However, it is equally important to be certain the party you identified is one from which you can obtain compensation. There are various statutes that state that, in certain situations, particular entities are completely immune from liability, meaning that you cannot obtain a judgment against them and cannot obtain the compensation you need from them. If you’ve suffered an injury in an accident in Northern California, you should be sure to retain an experienced California injury attorney to represent you and give your side the strong advocate you need.

Some injury cases can arise from relatively unusual circumstances. Just because your accident is not typical, don’t mistake that to mean that you cannot sue and cannot win an award of damages. Consider the case of M.A. M.A. was a member of her college’s interscholastic beach volleyball team who was hurt while competing. Her team was playing in a tournament at a college in San Diego County when M.A’s knee allegedly struck a rock in the sand. The impact of the woman’s knee with the rock caused her to suffer an injury, according to her complaint. The woman sued the college that hosted the tournament for negligence and premises liability. She later removed the premises liability claim and added one for “dangerous condition of public property.” The college asked the trial judge to throw out the case based upon something known as “field trips and excursions” immunity.

The trial judge agreed with the college that the statutory immunity for field trips and excursions applied to the woman’s circumstances, meaning that the case must be dismissed. The appeals court, however, explained that this was incorrect. The appeals court made it very clear that the statutory immunity extended to field trips and excursions did not apply to situations where a member of a visiting team is injured during an intercollegiate athletic event. When an institution provides the facilities to be used in the athletic event, its duty to provide safe facilities extends to all players in the event, not just those who are students of the host school.

In any personal injury lawsuit, there are certain things you have to establish in order to have a chance to receive a favorable outcome. One of the first things you have to establish is something called “duty.” In the law, this means a legal obligation or responsibility to do something or refrain from doing something. If the person you sued owed no legal duty to do anything for you or refrain from an alleged action, then you cannot succeed, regardless of your factual evidence. If you can establish a duty and a failure to meet it, then you are one more step closer to success. When it comes to knowing what you have to prove in order to win your case, and how to go about putting together a persuasive trial presentation that meets your burden of proof, you should protect yourself and your case by retaining a skilled San Mateo personal injury attorney to represent you in your matter.

M.C.’s injury case was one that revolved prominently around the issue of a property owner’s duties. During a lunch at a Riverside County restaurant, M.C. allegedly was bitten by a black widow spider. She complained about the bite to restaurant staff shortly after it happened. The morning after the bite, she experienced extensive numbness in her body. She went to the hospital, was admitted and remained there for six days. The medical providers diagnosed her with “demyelination in [her] thoracic spine” as a result of the bite. M.C. sued the restaurant, asserting claims of negligence and premises liability.

The legal concept of foreseeability and how it impacts your case

One element of the issue of duty is foreseeability. A person or entity generally does not have a legal duty to protect you from things that are not foreseeable. For example, a business in northern New England would not have a duty to protect patrons from attacks by 30-foot crocodiles, because an attack by a 30-foot crocodile in northern New England would not be foreseeable, a popular 1999 suspense film notwithstanding. Black widow spiders and their bites are, unfortunately, quite foreseeable in Southern California.

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When you are an independent contractor and you’re hurt on the property of the party who hired you, your premises liability lawsuit can potentially be more complicated. In this type of situation, California law says that there are only two scenarios in which you can proceed with an injury lawsuit: “when the hirer exercised control over the contractor’s work in a manner that had contributed to the injury” and “when the hirer failed to warn the contractor of a concealed hazard on the premises.” If your situation doesn’t include either of those scenarios, then the property owner may be able to get your case dismissed before it even gets to trial, so proving one or both of these exceptions is of paramount importance. To make sure your premises liability case is as complete and unassailable as possible, be sure to retain the services of an experienced California injury attorney.

A recent case from Southern California shows how a worker can proceed in a situation like this,  avoiding a defendant’s request for summary judgment. The injured man was a professional window washer. The injury took place at the property of a very popular and successful singer of the 1950s and 60s. The singer’s home included an indoor pool that was covered by a large, round skylight. While his team was performing a cleaning job of the skylight, the window washer slipped and fell off the roof of the home after he had communicated instructions to the other window washers.

The injured window washer sued. Whether you are on the roof of a home, the yard attached to a home or inside a home, if you’re there with permission, the homeowner has a legal obligation to keep the premises safe for you. If a dangerous condition exists, the law says that the homeowner must correct the hazard or warn of the hazard. In the window washer’s situation, he asserted that there was loose rocks, pebbles and sand on the roof, which was what caused him to slip and fall off the roof. He also alleged that the roof was dangerous because the ledge required to access the skylight lacked safety railings and the shingles on the roof were “dilapidated,” making the surface slippery.

Whenever you are considering signing any document that restricts your legal rights in any way, it is important to make absolutely sure that you understand what you are signing. You need to be sure that you know what rights you are giving up and what rights you are retaining, in order for you to make a truly informed decision. If you are unsure about an agreement, seek out experienced California legal counsel to provide you with the advice you need.

P.Z. was a person potentially impacted by such an agreement after she was hurt at a health club. P.Z. was walking through a health club’s gymnasium when she tripped and fell. The accident happened because the member’s foot became entangled with a metal “wireway” that the club used to run wires to the club’s treadmill machines. She sued the club in a premises liability action for the harm she suffered, which included a fracture and dislocation of her right elbow.

In many health clubs like this, members sign an agreement as part of the application for membership process. This club had such an agreement. In the document, the member agreed, as part of seeking membership, to waive the right to sue for various types of harm.

When you hear the phrase “premises liability,” one very understandable reaction might be, “What’s that?” Another is to assume that “premises liability” comes up only in situations where a person suffers a slip-and-fall or trip-and-fall accident at a place of business. The reality is that premises liability can cover a variety of scenarios, extending beyond just slip-and-fall and trip-and-fall injuries. If you have been hurt while you were on someone else’s property, you may have a case and an entitlement to compensation. Contact an experienced California injury lawyer to learn more.

One example of this “other” type of premises liability injury took place recently here in San Mateo County. A 12-year-old boy and his family were camping in the San Mateo County Memorial Park when a 72-foot-tall tree fell on his tent. The early morning tree collapse was allegedly the result of a fungus that left the diseased tree rotten and unstable. In order to save the boy’s life, doctors amputated one of his legs and part of his pelvis.

The boy sued for premises liability. A premises liability case, whether it is a slip-and-fall, trip-and-fall or a case like this one, requires you, as the injured person, to give the court proof that the person/entity you sued is liable through negligence. In other words, you need proof that the person or entity who owned or controlled the property either acted improperly or improperly failed to act and that your injury was the reasonably foreseeable result of that negligence.