Fall River Slip & Fall Accident Attorney

Protecting Your Right to Compensation From Negligent Property Owners

Slip and fall accidents can occur in a number of settings, including properties owned by other individuals or commercial businesses. When these property owners fail to uphold their duty to ensure their premises is safe and free from potential hazards, and guests suffer preventable injuries as a result, victims have the right to seek a recovery of their damages – including their medical bills, lost wages, and pain and suffering – by pursuing a personal injury case.

Our Fall River personal injury attorneys at Morgan & Murphy, LLP have committed their professional careers to providing the support and representation victims need during difficult times. If you or someone you love has been injured in a slip and fall accident on another’s property, we are available to help you better understand your rights and whether you have grounds to pursue a personal injury claim. We’re also ready to leverage decades of collective experience to fight for the justice and compensation you’re entitled to under the law.

Elements of a Slip and Fall Accident Claim

Slip and fall accident claims, like any personal injury case, are centered on negligence and the need to prove fault and liability. Because property owners have a legal obligation to take reasonable measures that ensure the safety of their visitors and guests, they can be held accountable when they fail to uphold that duty, and liable for any resulting injuries and damages that failure causes.

Because slip and fall accidents are based on premises liability, there are particular elements of a claim that must be shown when victims look to prove fault and liability. Generally, these include:

• A Legal Duty Existed – In order for any claim to have merit, slip and fall accident victims must show that the defendant owed them a legal duty. In most cases, this duty exists when premises owners have visitors or guests on the property, and are required by law to ensure that they take reasonable measures in maintaining the property and addressing potential hazards they cause or knew or should have known about, especially when those hazards can foreseeably lead to preventable accidents. Premises owners don’t owe this same duty of care to trespassers in most cases, but certain exceptions may be made in cases involving children who wander onto a dangerous property.
• Breach of Duty – To establish fault, victims must prove that a property owner failed to uphold their legal duty of ensuring a safe premises. This often arises from negligence, which means victims will need to prove how a property owner was negligent in causing or failing to cause a potential hazard they knew or should have known about. Did the premises owner fail to repair a known tripping hazard? Did they fail to post warning or barriers to prevent guests from suffering harm? Did they know about a wet or slippery floor, but did nothing to fix it? These are the types of questions that can be used to prove how a legal duty was breached.
• Causation – Victims must further prove that a defendant’s negligence more likely than not caused their accident and injuries. If it were not for the property owner’s negligence in failing to address a known tripping hazard, for example, a victim would not have suffered injuries in a slip and fall accident.
• Damages – No claim is viable if victims do not suffer actual damages, which is why they must also provide evidence as to how the accident and injuries caused them to suffer losses. These losses may include economic damages such as medical bills and lost income caused by missing work, as well as non-economic damages that include their pain and suffering, loss of quality or enjoyment of life, and other emotional injuries.

Common Examples of Slip and Fall Accident Cases

While every case is unique, and the ability of victims to prove fault and liability dependent on the unique facts and circumstances involved, there are some general examples of the types of situations that can lead to these claims, including:

• Wet and slippery floors property owners failed to clean up
• Insufficient lighting that leads to tripping or falls
• Exposed cords and wiring that create tripping hazards
• Open holes that property owners did not fix
• Premises owners failing to block or barricade potential dangers, or failing to post adequate warnings to visitors and guests

Learn More About Your Rights During a Free Consultation

For more than 35 years, Morgan & Murphy, LLP has been trusted by injured victims and families who need proven representation when taking on negligent property owners, corporations, and insurance companies that work aggressively to pay as little as possible.