Hi, my name is Frank Papa and I’m an attorney with the Law Offices of Robert M Geller. In just a moment I’m gonna speak to you about how you can bring a claim if you’re injured at a business or on the property of someone else. Before I do, if you’re considering seeing an attorney about an injury that you may have suffered, please feel free to give us a call. We’re happy to sit down with you in a free consultation to discuss that matter.
What happens if you are injured at someone else’s business or their property? First off, a business owner owes a business invitee a duty of reasonable care to protect against hazardous conditions that might cause an injury. It’s not enough for you to prove, that’s the plaintiff, that hazardous condition exists, but you must also prove that the business owner knew of the condition and failed to remediate it, which means to fix it or remove it, in foresight of your possible injury.
Example: in some cases we have handled over the years for business invitees have been injured at businesses would be a nice lady who was going into a bank and right before she entered on the tile walkway they just fumigated for pest control. It was damp and slick unbeknownst to her. She slipped on that fumigation and tore some ligaments in her knee. We were able to bring that claim against the bank without having to go to trial and settle that case for a good result for our client.
Another young lady was attending college and the college had a parking lot that led to the classrooms. At the walkway with the parking lot there was a depression from damage to the asphalt. There was a hole that our client stepped in and fractured her ankle that again was a hazardous condition that the business owner of the school failed to fix even though it had been there for many years as you can see from the waterwear of the hole. We brought that claim and settled that claim as well without having to go to trial.
If you are injured on someone else’s business or property there are some things you can do to protect your claim and reach maximum value. You want to seek medical attention immediately. You want to preserve any evidence. For example, we were able to bring the claim of the lady at the bank because she had clothing that showed stains from the wetness that she fell into. You want to take photos of the hazardous condition because one thing that business owners like to do is fix things immediately to try and cover their tracks so make sure you have your cell phone handy and take photos or video of that hazardous condition.
You want to ask for the incident report, now they don’t like to give you incident report out, but at least you’re making that claim. Preserve that record and we as your attorney can come in and get that later through litigation. You want to make sure you get names of witnesses and phone numbers – people come forward that want to be involved in today’s day and age. They want to help, so if you see people trying to help, ask your loved one or whoever you’re with to get their name and phone number so that we can follow up as your attorney and find out their perspective of how the injury happened. It will most likely corroborate your story and of course, you want to see a medical doctor as soon as possible and keep the records. Ask for your records because we want to have those records available to evaluate your claim as soon as possible.
If you have been injured by no fault of your own at a business on someone else’s property, please feel free to give us a call at The Law Offices of Robert M Geller. We’ll be very happy to speak to you about that claim. Thanks a lot for listening.
