Slips, trips, and falls can lead to severe injuries that impact your health, financial stability, and overall quality of life. If you’ve been hurt during a slip and fall in Covina, our lawyers can investigate a property owner’s negligence and determine whether or not you may be entitled to compensation for your losses.
At Omega Law Group Accident & Injury Lawyers, our experienced Covina personal injury lawyers have recovered millions of dollars for our clients since the firm’s founding in 2016. Let our family take care of your family. We can start fighting for your right to accident compensation without charging you a dime.
When to Call a Covina Slip and Fall Lawyer
In the immediate aftermath of a slip and fall accident, our Covina slip and fall attorneys recommend that you:
- Call emergency responders, even if you don’t feel seriously injured
- Remain on the scene only if it is safe to do so
- Begin gathering evidence of dangerous conditions nearby, including photos and videos of your environment
- Speak with bystanders and ask for their contact information
- Ask a landowner for their insurance information
Once you’re in a safe place and emergency responders have stabilized any injuries you sustained in your fall, we recommend immediately calling a slip and fall lawyer. Covina legal representatives can immediately protect you from insurance adjusters who want to take advantage of your confusion.
Our team can also gather any evidence you may have missed while disoriented or receiving treatment for your slip and fall injuries. In other words, the sooner you call our team, the faster we can kickstart the legal process that may help you get the monetary compensation you need to pay your accident bills.
Understanding Premises Liability in Covina
Property owners in Covina have a legal obligation to maintain safe conditions for visitors. They must fix hazards or warn people about hazards so others don’t get hurt. Sometimes, people get hurt because landowners fail in their duty.
When they fail to uphold this duty of care, and someone suffers an injury, the responsible party may be held liable under the concept of premises liability. Slip and fall accidents are a common type of premises liability case.
Common causes of slip and fall accidents include:
- Wet or slippery floors
- Uneven walking surfaces or potholes
- Loose carpeting or floorboards
- Inadequate lighting in dimly lit areas
- Lack of handrails on stairs
- Debris or clutter in walkways
If you’ve been injured in a slip and fall accident on someone else’s property, talk to a Covina slip and fall attorney to understand your legal options. You don’t have to pay for an injury that wasn’t your fault.
Invitees, Licensees, and Trespassers: The Legalities of a Slip and Fall Case
Only certain parties have the right to legally recover from a slip and fall accident. If you want to file a personal injury lawsuit against a landowner after a slip and fall, you need to prove that you were on that person’s land as an invitee or a licensee.
- The “invitee” label indicates that a landowner welcomed you onto their land, either as a friend, a customer, or a related party
- The “licensee” label indicates that a landowner invited you onto their land as a fellow professional, like a plumber, electrician, or inspector
You do not have the right to take legal action against a landowner if you trespassed onto that person’s land. However, landowners likewise cannot take excessive force to remove you from their property.
If you’re not sure what your legal standing on someone else’s property was at the time of a catastrophic injury accident, it’s time to seek out legal counsel. Our law firm can help you determine whether or not you have the right to pursue a personal injury claim.
Should You Contact an Insurance Company After a Slip and Fall Accident?
Slip and fall accident victims like you have the right to report a landowner’s unsafe conditions to an insurance adjuster after a serious fall. However, you should expect to fight for the financial compensation you deserve. Insurance providers do not want to pay out a client’s claims, no matter how serious an injury seems.
Insurance claims adjusters will bring the quality of your insurance coverage into question when you ask for support. They may try to claim that slip and fall injuries aren’t covered in your insurance policy or that you contributed too much of the fault to your own accident. Some providers may even compromise the integrity of your evidence to challenge your claim.
Does this mean you shouldn’t pursue slip and fall coverage through an insurance provider? No. However, we recommend doing so only after you’ve brought an experienced Covina, CA, slip and fall accident attorney onto your case. Our team can mediate with insurance adjusters on your behalf and protect your right to compensation.
Proving Negligence in a Covina Slip and Fall Claim
Anyone who wants to successfully bring a premises liability claim forward in civil court has a legal obligation to prove that someone else’s negligence caused their injuries. Making these points requires your attorney and you to find enough evidence to prove that:
- A landowner owed you a duty of care at the time of your accident
- A landowner’s purposeful or accident failure to maintain their property resulted in your unreasonable endangerment
- That behavior had a direct impact on your slip and fall
- You endured economic losses and physical injuries as a result of your slip and fall
You can count on our slip and fall attorneys in Covina to scour the scene of a slip and fall accident to find the evidence needed to make your case against the appropriate parties. We use a combination of incident reports, surveillance footage, and bystander accounts to establish your right to a case.
Who Can Be Held Responsible for a Slip and Fall Accident?
Your right to hold certain parties accountable for your slip and fall losses will depend on what evidence of negligence you and your attorney can bring forward when filing your personal injury claim. The parties most often found responsible for today’s slip and fall accidents include the following:
- Landowners: Anyone who owns property has a responsibility to stay on top of any dangerous conditions that might develop on their land. Property owners who fail to maintain their land can see invitees and licensees fall victim to devastating injuries.
- Property Managers: Managers can have a direct influence over the state of someone’s property, be it a large stretch of land or the confines of a store. Managers subsequently share responsibility for the safety of anyone on that property and must take action to address any dangerous conditions, less they be charged with negligence after a slip and fall accident.
- Business Tenants: If someone is leasing a property from a landowner to run a business, they constitute that business’s tenant. Business tenants may not default fault for a slip and fall accident back onto a landowner, as business tenants assume direct responsibility for the security of retail stores, restaurants, and other businesses operated on a leaser’s property.
- Maintenance Contractors: Maintenance contractors have a legal obligation to help tenants, landowners, and managers overcome any hazardous conditions that may plague a property. Contractors who fail to safely complete repairs, cleaning services, or maintenance can assume responsibility for someone else’s slip and fall accident.
- Government Representatives: If your slip and fall accident took place on public property, including a park, sidewalk, or government building, you may have the right to hold government representatives liable for your losses. Be warned, though. Personal injury cases brought against a government agency often have to appear in court faster than traditional claims, and they may require additional legwork on your attorney’s part.
Seeking Compensation for Your Losses
Slip and fall accidents can leave you with significant financial burdens, including the cost of your medical expenses. If you’re trying to pay medical bills while you can’t return to work, addressing other expenses, including your property damage, can seem impossible.
Fortunately, filing a slip and fall claim alongside a Covina attorney allows you to ask for compensation based on the economic and non-economic expenses tied to your accident. So long as you have evidence of your losses that ties them back to your fall, you can include their cost in your request for compensation.
Our team has helped slip and fall accident survivors like you recover damages based on losses like the following:
- Reduced quality of life
- Reduced enjoyment of life
- Emotional distress
- Pain and suffering
- Property damage
- Emergency medical care and ambulance fees
- Accident-related medical expenses, including bills from specialists, general practitioners, and physical therapists
- Pain management aids, mobility aids, and at-home assistance
- Lost income and/or an inability to return to work
If a slip and fall accident results in the wrongful death of someone you love, our team can include additional expenses, including funeral costs, mortuary services, lost income, and loss of companionship, in your request for support. We can help you calculate an estimate of your case’s value during a complimentary consultation with our team.
Can You Receive Punitive Damages After a Slip and Fall?
You do not have the right to include a request for punitive damages in the slip and fall claim you initially filed with California’s civil courts. However, if you take your case before a judge, that judge may award you punitive damages.
Punitive damages are designed to compensate accident victims for additional compensation resulting from accidents caused by someone else’s gross negligence or aggressive recklessness.
Notably, you may only receive punitive damages if you go before a judge to make a case for compensation. You may not receive this support if you privately negotiate a settlement with the landowner responsible for your losses.
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What to Do if a Slip and Fall Accident Results in a Loved One’s Wrongful Death
No one wants to find out that they’ve lost a loved one to someone else’s negligence. Unfortunately, landowners’ inattention can see anyone on their property suffer a life-ending accident. If you lose a loved one this way, California may afford you the right to pursue a wrongful death claim on their behalf.
To prove your right to a wrongful death claim, you must bring forward a preponderance of the evidence proving that a landowner’s negligence played directly into your loved one’s passing. Our Covina wrongful death lawyers can help you gather the data needed to make your case without infringing on your right to grieve.
Notably, there are only a few parties who can pursue a wrongful death claim on behalf of a lost loved one. You must prove that you’re the deceased’s surviving spouse, domestic partner, child, or grandchild to move a case forward. If none of these parties are available, the right to file falls to descendants with the right to inherit and financial dependents.
The Importance of Acting Quickly
Cal. Civ. Code § 335.1 gives you two years and no longer to take legal action against a landowner who put you in harm’s way. If you don’t act before the deadline, you could lose your right to seek compensation altogether.
That’s why it’s crucial to consult with a knowledgeable Covina slip and fall lawyer as soon as possible after your accident. Your first case evaluation with our personal injury attorneys comes free of charge and does not obligate you to pursue a case against a negligent landowner.
What to Expect After You File a Slip and Fall Accident Claim
Once you bring a slip and fall claim forward, a court must consider whether or not the evidence you’ve presented meets or exceeds California’s burden of proof. If it does, you’ll win the right to call the party you named liable for your losses forward for a conversation about your right to accident support.
You can then negotiate with a landowner or related party for the compensation you need to recover from your accident. If a landowner acknowledges their role in your accident, you may conclude negotiations within a few weeks or months of your accident.
However, not everyone wants to admit that they’ve done someone else harm. If you’re struggling to make a landowner recognize the severity of their negligence, our slip and fall attorneys in Covina, CA, can take your case in front of a judge. We’ll prepare you for this process by telling you more about:
- Discovery
- Opening statements
- Examination
- Cross-examination
- Closing statements
- Deliberation and verdict
Contact Omega Law Group Today
You don’t have to let landowners or other parties get away with the negligence that led to your slip and fall accident. Our dedicated Covina slip and fall accident attorneys offer free, no-obligation case consultations to survivors like you. We want you to use your consultation to explore your right to hold other people responsible for your recovery.
Omega Law Group takes pride in offering a client-centered approach to the legal process. We keep up with developments in technology to better analyze our clients’ data and build the narratives of negligence behind their slip and fall accidents.
You can count on our team to provide you with personalized legal advice on a contingency basis – meaning you won’t have to put down a deposit or worry about bills to begin your pursuit of justice. It’s time to let negligent property owners know that you mean business. You can contact Omega Law Group to schedule your initial consultation right now.
