Who Assumes Premises Liability

Premises liability involves injuries that occur on a person’s property. This type of lawsuit involves more than just slip and fall injuries, although these are the most well-known forms of premise liability lawsuits. Premises liability actually falls in the general category of personal injury lawsuits. With premises liability, however, the lawsuit is more detailed and definitive.

Types of Premises Liability Lawsuits

Premises liability involves any kind of injury that occurs on someone’s property. Some of these include:

• Lack of security
• Falling objects
• Dog bites
• Accidents on construction sites

These types of lawsuits involve many more details than a standard personal injury lawsuit. For example, factors such as contributory negligence by the person who is injured play a larger role with premises liability cases. If your dog is secured on your premises but someone breaks into your home, for example, there is no premises liability on your part. Strangely, there have been cases where criminals have attempted to sue homeowners when they have been bitten by the family dog after entering the home illegally.

Hammering Out the Details

Premises liability is probably one of the most difficult areas of personal injury to prove because of the necessity to prove that the injured party held no responsibility for the incident. Broken steps that cause injury are far different from someone jumping and causing steps to break.

Although one might say that the steps were in need of repair, proving that they would not have broken without help from the injured party is a decision only the court can determine. On the other hand, if someone is injured on an amusement park ride that provides a weight limit lower than that of the injured party, you have a case of contributory negligence and may receive minimal compensation. At the same time, you will still have to demonstrate that the attendant should have been able to tell you were too heavy for the ride.

Keeping Yourself Protected

Injuries on construction sites are likely to be one of the most difficult to prove. If there is safety equipment available, the owner or user of the construction site must assume the responsibility of proving the injured party was in violation of the safety code. Quite often, visitors are provided with hard hats and safety glasses but no one checks to make certain they are using the equipment. It is very difficult to prove which party is at fault, so it usually comes down to nothing more than payment for injuries sustained. Unlike cases of someone falling on a damaged ladder, infractions of safety code are often the word of one party’s word again the other.

Inadequate security is an area in which many companies are negligent. Lack of lighting in a parking lot or hallway that results in someone being attacked is becoming more commonplace because of companies trying to cut costs. The problem is cutting costs at the risk of their customers and employees is being ludicrous. Cutting costs at the risk of injury to others is likely to cost more money in the end than spending the money for security in the first place. Criminals are looking for dark hallways and parking lots, so a company’s failure to provide proper lighting is courting disaster. CentralJerseyLegalServices.com can help anyone who has been injured due to the negligence of another in any of the areas of premises liability.