Are Slip-and-Fall Cases Hard To Win?

If you slipped and fell on another person’s property, you may be exploring the idea of pursuing compensation from the property owner. But before you consider a lawsuit, you may wonder: “Are slip-and-fall cases hard to win?”

The answer is, oftentimes, yes. Slip-and-fall cases are some of the more challenging personal injury cases to win. But with the help of an experienced Melbourne, FL, personal injury lawyer, you can improve your chances of securing compensation.

What Is a Slip-and-Fall Case?

A slip-and-fall case occurs when someone trips, slips, or stumbles on another party’s property because of a pre-existing hazard. Common hazardous conditions in these cases include:

• Wet floors
• Clutter on the floor
• Uneven surfaces
• Torn or bunched carpeting
• Icy or uneven sidewalks

When a property owner is liable for these hazards, you may have the right to seek compensation through an insurance claim or a slip-and-fall lawsuit. But winning a slip-and-fall claim isn’t always easy. It requires you to prove that there is a “preponderance of evidence” that the property owner’s negligence caused your injuries.

This “preponderance of evidence” standard is not the same as the “reasonable doubt” standard criminal cases must meet. Instead, it means you must prove that your claims are more likely true than not, providing 50.01% certainty.

A judge or jury does not need to be 100% certain that the defendant’s negligence caused your injuries, but you still need to provide extensive evidence of this fact.

Common Injuries in Slip-and-Fall Cases

While slip-and-fall cases are often hard to win, the need for compensation can be significant. Slipping, tripping, and falling could lead to serious injuries, such as:

• Broken bones and fractures
• Severe sprains
• Spinal cord injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries

You may be facing steep medical bills and other out-of-pocket expenses after your accident. Winning a slip-and-fall lawsuit could allow you to gain fair compensation to make up for your financial losses and the emotional toll of the accident.

What Is the Slip-and-Fall Lawsuit Success Rate?

There is no exact data about the success rate of slip-and-fall cases. Some attorneys estimate that a plaintiff’s chances of winning are less than 50%. Others give an even lower percentage.

One statistic that is more reliable is that the majority of slip-and-fall cases do not go to trial. Attorneys estimate that as many as 96% of these cases settle out of court. This means you probably will be able to avoid going to court altogether.

While the success rate may seem worrisome, understand that an attorney will not take on your case unless they feel confident in your ability to win. They won’t let you go through the legal process for no reason.

What You Need To Prove To Win a Slip-and-Fall Case

As the plaintiff, you have the burden of proof in a slip-and-fall case. In other words, your attorney is responsible for proving that the property owner owes you compensation.

Slip-and-fall cases are personal injury cases asserting that another party’s negligence caused your injuries or other damages. Your attorney will need to prove these four elements of negligence to have grounds for seeking compensation:

• Duty of care: The property owner owed you a duty of care.
• Breach of duty: The property owner breached their duty of care.
• Causation: An accident occurred due to the breach.
• Damages: You suffered injuries or other damages in the accident.

Understanding each of these elements in depth will help you know whether your slip-and-fall case is winnable.

Duty of Care

People generally owe a duty of care to prevent avoidable accidents and not cause harm to others. Because the negligent party in your case was a property owner, you can point to premises liability laws to determine the exact duty of care this party owed you.

Property owners owe a duty of care to those who are lawfully on their premises, including:

1. Invitees: Someone a property owner invites in explicitly or implicitly for their own gain. This might include a friend someone invites over to their house to hang out, or a customer at a store.
2. Licensees: Someone who enters a property lawfully for their own benefit. This might include a person who enters a coffee shop to use the restroom but does not make a purchase.

Property owners generally do not owe this duty to trespassers, who enter the property without permission. The main exception is children; a property owner is responsible for reasonably mitigating hazards that would hurt a child who wandered over.

If you can prove that you were legally on the property as an invitee, you will be able to show that the defendant owed you a strong duty of care. This duty is slightly less strong toward licensees but still applicable.

Breach of Duty

Property owners have a duty to reasonably eliminate hazards that may cause an invitee or licensee to become injured. They breach that duty of care when they fail to mitigate dangers that could have caused foreseeable harm.

To prove a breach of duty of care, you need to show that the owner knew (or reasonably should have known) about the dangerous condition that caused your accident. This means the condition had to have existed long enough for them to know about it or have been foreseeable based on prior instances of the same hazard.

Examples of hazards that may give rise to a slip-and-fall case include:

• Puddles on the floor due to a leak in the ceiling that had been present for some time
• Clutter left in the aisle of a store for several hours
• Bunched carpeting that had existed for some time
• Poor lighting conditions that the owner had time to fix

Meanwhile, if you dropped a carton of milk in a grocery store and immediately slipped on the puddle, you probably won’t be able to blame this on the property owner’s negligence.

Causation

Demonstrating that the property owner acted negligently isn’t enough to prove liability in a slip-and-fall case. You also need to directly tie their negligence to the accident.

This step involves providing evidence that shows exactly how the accident happened. For example, photos and videos of the accident scene can demonstrate that the hazard led you to trip and fall. You can also turn to any witnesses to provide witness statements, detailing what they saw and supporting that the hazard led you to slip and fall.

If the accident happened in a business, your attorney may be able to submit a subpoena for any security camera footage that may have caught the accident. This can go a long way toward proving causation.

Damages

Finally, you need to show that the accident caused damages. Damages are the economic and non-economic losses that occurred due to the accident. Economic damages may include:

• Medical expenses
• Time off work
• Loss of future earning capacity
• Future medical treatment

Meanwhile, non-economic damages don’t reflect the actual monetary costs of the accident, instead pointing to other losses. They might encompass:

• Pain and suffering
• Loss of quality of life
• Emotional distress

Some cases also give rise to punitive damages. These punish the property owner for especially egregious actions, such as leaving a severe fire hazard on the property or neglecting to perform any maintenance to ensure the property’s safety.

Your slip-and-fall attorney can help you prove that these damages resulted from the accident. For example, they can collect medical records to show that your injuries were not pre-existing and did not happen sometime after the accident; they happened directly because of the slip and fall.

Potential Complications That Can Make a Slip-and-Fall Case Challenging To Win

Are slip-and-fall cases hard to win? They can be compared to some other personal injury cases.

It is not always easy to show that the property owner was negligent for your injuries. Your case may also involve circumstances that make it more difficult to prove.

For example, these challenges in slip-and-fall cases might complicate your claim.

• No one saw the accident. Evidence is crucial to proving fault in a slip-and-fall accident case. If no one saw the accident and it wasn’t caught on surveillance footage, you may have a difficult time proving that the hazard caused your injuries — or that the hazard existed at all.
• You don’t have evidence that you were legally on the property. Do you have any text messages or emails from the property owner inviting you over? If not, and the accident happened on residential property, they might claim you were trespassing. But if you were inside a store during business hours, you can likely prove that you were there legally.
• The accident occurred in the parking lot or outside the business. If the accident happened outside the business, such as on a sidewalk or parking lot, it may be challenging to hold someone liable. The business owner may not have been responsible for the parking lot, or the hazard may have been something you should reasonably expect to encounter outdoors.
• The hazard was a weather condition. On a similar note, you can’t exactly hold a property owner liable for the weather. If you slipped on an icy sidewalk or lost your footing in one of Palm Bay’s notorious sudden downpours, you might not be able to blame the property owner.

Your slip-and-fall lawyer will inform you of any potential complications and other important factors in your case.

How To Improve Your Chances of Winning a Slip-and-Fall Case

Slip-and-fall cases are some of the more difficult premises liability cases to win, but that doesn’t mean yours will be impossible. You can improve your chances of securing adequate compensation in a slip-and-fall injury case by heeding these tips.

• Hire an experienced attorney: The right slip-and-fall lawyer can significantly improve your chances of a successful outcome. Look for an attorney who has specific experience with your type of case and knows how to gather evidence to strengthen your claim.
• Seek medical attention: Seeking prompt medical treatment after a slip-and-fall accident will help you prove your damages. This can clearly show that your severe injuries happened because of the accident and not sometime after. It can also provide you with medical documentation to use in your case.
• Document everything: It helps to alert the property owner at the accident scene and have them make an incident report. But if you did not do this, you can still gain significant evidence by documenting all of the details yourself. Write down the time and location of the accident, who was present, and exactly what occurred. Continue recording your symptoms and pain levels each day and retain copies of any communications you have with the property owner.
• Be open to settlement negotiations: Your case is more likely to settle out of court than proceed to a full trial. With this in mind, you may want to adjust your expectations for your compensation award. Being open to negotiating a settlement offer could make you more likely to receive any compensation. Meanwhile, if you don’t have much evidence, a judge in a trial may not award you damages; a settlement may be your only option.
• Keep the statute of limitations in mind: Florida’s statute of limitations for personal injury cases is two years from the injury date. Keep this in mind and be sure to file your legal claim before the deadline.

Let Our Experienced Personal Injury Lawyers Guide Your Case

Are slip-and-fall cases hard to win? These cases have a reputation for being somewhat difficult to win compared to other premises liability claims. Our slip-and-fall attorneys at Alpizar Law Firm are up for a challenge.

We would be happy to evaluate the circumstances of your accident and determine whether you have a strong claim. If so, we will guide you through the legal process and help you maximize your compensation. Our experience and knowledge of the law mean we will take a comprehensive approach to your case.

Call today at 321-676-2511 for a free case evaluation with our legal team. Then learn more about determining fault in a personal injury case.