Many law firms in Florida no longer take trip and fall or slip and fall accidents. Because Florida has what's known as comparative fall. So unlike a rear-end automobile accident, in a case involving a trip and fall or a slip and fall accident, a jury is allowed to apportion fault or divide fault between my client and the owner of the property.
Many times when you try these cases, juries think to themselves, right out of the box, if you trip and fell or slip and fell then you probably did something to cause or at least contribute to causing your own fall. That bias has to be overcome. And the way we do that is with a mountain of evidence. We get a forensic engineer involved right away to explain the defect. Then we go out to look for prior incidence of similar falls by other people who have complained to the owner to demonstrate a long-standing problem. Through our hard work, we've been very successful in proving liability on the part of the defendants in taking these cases to trial.
A landlord must make reasonable provisions for the apartment complex to keep it reasonably safe. For example, I've represented a tenant who tripped and fell on a 2nd-story wood balcony because the landlord allowed the wooden planks up there to become uneven with nails uprooting very high above the walking surface of a 2nd-story apartment unit. And one morning, in the dark, she tripped over one of these uprooted nails and tumbled head over heels down the flight of stairs suffering very bad injuries. As this often the case, the landlord refuses to accept responsibility so we're taking the case to trial.
If you have a loved one who have been involved in a trip and fall accident or a landlord and tenant accident, please give me a call. The call's free. And I will spend the time with you answering all of your questions and together, we will figure out whether or not you have a case.
