Are Landowners Always Responsible for Slip and Falls

Does it matter if the landowner isn’t at fault or doesn’t have a dangerous condition in a slip and fall or a premises liability case? Absolutely it does. Some people think that just because you fall on someone’s property, the property owner has to pay you and is obligated to compensate you for your damages. That’s not true at all.

The only time you’re entitled to recover for a slip and fall or a premises liability case is if the landowner had a dangerous condition on their property, they were negligent in having that dangerous condition, they failed to warn about that dangerous condition, they knew or could have known of the dangerous condition, and you didn’t know about it.

You have to not know about it or acted reasonable. If there’s a hole, it’s a 20-foot hole in someone’s yard, you just can’t walk into it. Now if you can’t see it, if it’s covered, if it’s dark, or they maintain that hole and that’s dangerous, then you can recover. So, you also have to look out for your own negligence.

So, I got the question the other day, and I have people calling, saying, “Hey, I think just because I injured myself on someone’s property, I slipped somewhere, I fell in a hole, a curb was broken, a stair collapsed, that I get to recover.” That’s not necessarily the case. There has to be a dangerous condition and the landowner needs to be negligent, and one of the things that we do as lawyers is we establish that. We have to establish that breach of duty and negligence and rule violation on the part of the landowner. We’re adept at doing it. We’ve had many successes in doing it.

So if you have questions about that, you want to know about that, you want an answer or further details on these issues, call us at 866-599-2222, in Illinois it’s 618-272-2222, in Missouri at 314-542-2222. Thank you.