Does a homeowner or a landowner have to pay you if you slip and fall or trip and fall on their property? The answer is no. Many homeowners or business owners do not have to pay you just because you fall on their property even if it’s their fault, and I’ve had a client ask me that the other day and I had to explain it to him so I thought I’d do a short video on it.
No one has to pay you. All you do is you hold a claim if you slip in a grocery store or you fall on black ice at the Home Depot or one of these are Lowe’s or one of these places. So, no one has to pay you. You have to be an advocate for your own rights. You hold a legal claim. Now if it’s a small claim, you have a little bit of injury and you’re talking to the insurance adjuster and they want to take care of you, you can resolve that claim yourself. If you have more serious injuries or they’re challenging liability, that’s the time that a lawyer like me can add value to your claim.
I’m Gary Burger. My firm is Burger Law. We’re on the web at www.wordpress-1141749-3971949.cloudwaysapps.com. I’ll give you my other contact information at the end of this video.
So, there is no obligation to pay you, but when a property owner has guest on their property, either they are business, they’re making money off you as a customer, or you’re visiting in the home, then they owe a duty not to have a dangerous condition on their property which could injure you, and they have to inspect their property and keep it reasonably safe for their guest, and if they fail to do that and they break that safety rule, then they’re liable for the harm, and they’re responsible for that harm.
And that’s an important safety rule. If people come to my house, it has to be safe for them. If I have a store or a business where I’m selling merchandise to customers, I have to keep it reasonably safe for them, and they’ll often say, “Well, you needed to look out for yourself.” You do need to look out for your own safety, but when you walk around, you walk, you look above, you look down, you environmentally scan to make sure you’re not going to get hit by a car, or you’re not just looking at the floor, so you look all around, so don’t let someone blame and say, “It’s your fault because you weren’t looking adequately out for your safety.” Usually you are. No one tries to walk into a hole in a yard or slip on black ice or slip on some water spill in a store.
So, remember that the landowner doesn’t necessarily have to pay you, and it’s only for you being vigilant about your rights to get 100% compensated for your injury that will make it so. Remember, you don’t need to be 70% compensated but 100% compensated for your damages. Those are wage loss damages, medical bills, pain and suffering, disability and disfigurement, future medical, future pain, future disability, those types of things, and wage loss damages. We’ve had a lot of successes in these cases.
If you have any questions about this, call me, Gary Burger at Burger Law, 866-599-2222 toll-free, in Illinois it’s 618-272-2222, in Missouri it’s 314-542-2222, and you can email me at gary@burgerlaw.com. Thank you.