Property owners in Georgia are required by law to ensure that their premises are free from dangerous hazards that may lead to injury. If this duty has been violated and an unsafe property condition has led to you sustaining injuries, you can trust our Carrollton slip and fall lawyers at the Law Office of John B. Jackson to help you recover monetary damages. To schedule your Free Case Review call us today at 770-988-6155, use our online chat service, or contact form to get in touch with us.
How Will a Carrollton Slip and Fall Attorney Help?
Retail institutions and insurance providers want to settle quickly and pay you the least possible amount. They usually have multiple lawyers all looking out for the best interests of the insurance company who is their client. No matter how good or nice they might sound on the phone, it is always important to keep in mind that you are vulnerable when alone without a lawyer.
You require a professional such as the Carrollton personal injury lawyers at the Law Office of John B. Jackson to ensure that your interests are properly represented. Insurance adjusters typically want to talk immediately with the victim and the natural inclination for most people is to do exactly that – talk. So, avoid talking to the insurance adjusters. You have more rights than you actually know. We don’t like the idea of our clients talking to anyone in our absence.
What Are the Most Common Causes of Slip and Fall Accidents?
Slip and fall accidents in Georgia can be the result of a wide variety of conditions and causes. Here are some of the most common ones:
- Slick/wet floors, staircases, or walkways
- Broken staircases or malfunctioning escalators
- Hazardous debris such as tree branches, etc. that isn’t cleaned up
- Unlit hallways or walkways
- Weather-related conditions such as ice or snow that isn’t salted and/or shoveled away
- Structural defects or improper upkeep/maintenance that leads to cracked sidewalks, uneven steps, broken floor tiles, potholes in parking lots/streets, or torn carpeting
- Failure to install storm drains, gutters, or anti-slip devices that lead to hazardous conditions in case of heavy rainfall or snowfall
- Failure to place signs and/or restrict access to areas where hazardous conditions such as any of the ones listed above exist.
You can file a slip and fall claim regarding a serious falling injury on any property that is not your own. All property owners – regardless of whether they are a homeowner, grocery store owner, a city that owns a government building, or a construction corporation – have a duty to ensure the safety of visitors. If that expectation is broken, citizens of the United States have the right to take legal action. Doing that ensures that body needlessly gets injured again.
How Much is a Slip and Fall Case in Carrollton Worth?
Personal injury claims have 3 key components:
- Pain and suffering
- Lost income
- Reasonable and necessary medical expense.
Our law firm will gather your medical bills and work with both you and your employer to calculate the total amount of time off of work that you missed through no fault of your own. Pain and suffering tend to be more complicated to calculate and is usually determined via tangible and intangible evidence. We generally never come up with any numbers until you recover 100 percent or as much as is medically possible.
What Steps Should Be Taken Immediately After a Slip and Fall Accident?
If you had the slip and fall accident in a public place, you can be your own best advocate by doing the following:
- Reporting the incident to someone in authority i.e. supervisor, manager, etc.
- Taking as many photos as possible at the time
- Taking down the names and numbers of any witnesses
- Seeking immediate medical attention if you need it
- Ensuring that the problem is addressed immediately if possible
Our investigators often return to the scene with you to recreate the incident. Our team will get in touch with any witnesses and take the case from there. Getting better will be your next job. If you have to see a doctor, follow the treatment plan provided until you are completely healed/healthy.
How is Comparative Negligence Law in Georgia Applicable to Slip and Fall Cases?
The concept of negligence is the first thing you need to understand about slip and fall injury lawsuits. If the owner of a property doesn’t keep their property properly maintained, they are acting negligently. If you sustain injuries due to such negligence, they can be held liable for your injuries.
If your injuries were caused partially by your own carelessness or actions (if, for instance, you ignored a warning sign or was distracted by your cell phone), your award for injuries along with other damages may be reduced by the amount that you were comparatively at fault.
You might be asked questions such as the ones below during the process of filing a slip and fall accident injury claim:
- Were you engaging in any activities that might have played a role in you suffering the slip and fall injury?
- Did the owner of the property give warning of the dangerous condition that resulted in your slip and fall accident?
- Would an individual of reasonable caution in a similar situation have noticed and avoided the dangerous condition if they were not distracted in any way?
- Did you have good reason to be on the premises of the property owner at the time when the accident happened?
If you are the victim of a slip and fall accident, the property owner’s insurance company will most likely ask you such questions to determine whether you acted negligently. Depending on the answers you provide, this can reduce your accident settlement in a drastic way. If you don’t have an experienced slip and fall attorney helping you, your claim will be particularly difficult to succeed in court.
How Are Slip and Fall Accidents Proven?
To prove that the accident you had occurred only because of the property owner’s negligence, you will only be required to prove 2 things under Georgia’s premises liability laws:
- The property owner had prior knowledge of the hazardous condition or should have reasonably been aware of its existence.
- The injured victim wasn’t aware of the dangerous condition i.e. There weren’t any signs posted and they couldn’t see it in time.
Under the above rules, the owner of the property has a reasonable amount of time to fix any of the hazardous conditions that could be present. During this period is when the property owner is required to post signs and/or keep visitors away from the dangerous area. The precise definition of “reasonable” as it applies to slip and fall cases is determined by the judge/jury during negotiations or litigation.
Recover with the Assistance of a Carrollton Slip and Fall Attorney
If you or a loved one has suffered due to the slip and fall accident that happened on somebody else’s property, get in touch with the Law Office of John B. Jackson to be paired with an expert Carrollton slip and fall attorney. Our law firm specializes in representing negligence victims. We have the resources needed to fight for your rights.
