How a New Florida Bill Affects Slip and Fall Cases
By Peter J. Somera Jr. and Paul M. Silva | Published on August 3, 2011 | 0 Comments
People slip and fall all the time, and the vast majority of falls are completely harmless accidents. But occasionally one does suffer an injury as a result of a fall, and when it is due to another person’s negligence, it can result in a personal injury lawsuit. In the state of Florida, the law used to favor injured plaintiffs in cases such as these, so much so that the state was recognized as one of the best places for litigating in slip and fall cases. But a new bill has changed the arena, and reduced the responsibility of business owners in these cases, making it much more challenging to win and more important to have a personal injury attorney in Florida representing you.
Peter J. Somera, Jr. and Paul M. Silva are Fort Lauderdale personal injury lawyers with the law firm Somera and Silva LLP, and they say that the new bill makes winning a slip-and-fall case more challenging for both plaintiffs and their attorneys. “Before the reform passed in Florida, the burden of proof didn’t rest so heavily on the plaintiff, but this has been changed and the new bill makes it extremely difficult to now bring one.”
According to Somera and Silva, the previous law stated that if there was an unsafe condition in a commercial business then it was considered to be an unsafe premises and a lawsuit could be brought against the business owner. However, the new bill now makes the business owner liable only if he had explicit knowledge of the unsafe condition, or if they should have had knowledge due to a recurring condition. This makes the job of a Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney much more difficult since they must carry the burden of proof.
To give an example, the attorneys cite a situation in which a convenience store owner knows that every Saturday groups of people come in to buy beer and spill ice on the floor. “If they know this happens every Saturday on game day, they need to have someone mop up the ice and if someone’s injured, then they should have known there would be water there and cleaned it up.” In such a situation, the business owner would be held liable for the spill. However, if the same slip and fall occurred on a regular weekday, then it is very possible the owner would not be held responsible for the injury.
In order to illustrate how the principle works, Somera and Silva give an example of a different situation that uses the same idea, this time involving a crime. “If you go shopping at a grocery store in an area that is well known for a lot of crime activity, where people get robbed in the parking lot and there are shooting and rapes in the vicinity, that supermarket needs to have adequate security to protect the customers.” If a business knows of the crime in the surrounding area and still do not provide security, this can count as an instance in which the owner knew of a problem yet failed to rectify it.
Ultimately, Somera and Silva say that the change to the bill makes it all the more important for a person injured in a slip-and-fall case to contact an experienced Fort Lauderdale personal injury attorney to help them decide whether or not they have a case, and then to bring it in front of the courts if they do.
*Disclaimer: This article is for informational purposes only. You should not rely on this article as a legal opinion on any specific facts or circumstances, and you should not act upon this information without seeking professional counsel. Publication of this article and your receipt of this article does not create an attorney-client relationship.