Slip And Fall Accidents During Storms

When people slip and fall, it is an accident, so how does it become a lawsuit where the party responsible for the site of the accident pays a settlement to the injured person, covering the person’s medical bills and sometimes other accident-related losses? You can get compensation for a slip and fall accident through the legal doctrine of premises liability if you can prove that the owner of the place where the accident happened knew or should have known about the dangerous conditions and should have been able to prevent them. You must also prove that the property owner had a legal duty to protect you from accidental injury on their property; this part is easy to prove if you were a customer at the property owner’s place of business. There are more gray areas if the premises were unsafe because of current or recent bad weather. If you got injured in a slip and fall accident during or immediately after a storm, contact a Columbia premises liability lawyer.

Is It Still Premises Liability If the Accident Happened During a Storm?

Many premises liability cases arise from accidents where customers slip and fall on wet surfaces at places of business. When the plaintiffs win their cases, it is because they can prove that the business management should have known that the surface was slippery, and they should have cleaned it or made it inaccessible to customers, or at least placed a sign warning customers of the wet surface. This is easy to prove when a leaking refrigerator case dropped water on the floor of a supermarket or someone spilled a glass of water on the floor of a restaurant.

If the floor is wet because of rain or snow, it is less easy to prove that the business owners could have prevented the wet conditions. As long as heavy rain keeps falling, customers will track water into the store on their shoes as fast as employees can mop the floors. Some states have storm doctrines, sometimes called storm in progress laws or continuing storm laws. These laws protect the premises owner from premises liability lawsuits arising from slip and fall accidents that happen during a storm. South Carolina does not have a storm doctrine, even though it has plenty of heavy rainstorms and occasional snow. Storm doctrines are more common in states where there is a continuous cover of snow on the ground, or at least patches of residual snow between storms, for most of the winter; therefore, slippery surfaces are ubiquitous, and business owners can assume that customers know about the hazards. In South Carolina, you must prove on a case-by-case basis that the business owner should have known about the snow storm.

Let Us Help You Today

The personal injury lawyers at the Stanley Law Group can help you get adequate compensation for your medical bills and other accident-related expenses after a slip and fall accident during a storm.  Contact The Stanley Law Group in Columbia, South Carolina or call (803)799-4700 for a free initial consultation.

Source:

findlaw.com/legalblogs/personal-injury/storm-doctrine-debated-in-slip-and-fall-suit/