When You Slip And Fall At A Store, Call Your Premise Liability Attorney.

When you are shopping at a supermarket, dining at a restaurant or browsing through a mall or big box store, you rightfully expect to be protected by the owners from unseen or unknown dangers. Ohio has laws requiring business owners to take reasonable steps to protect, warn and not actively injure their patrons, who are legally known as business invitees. Business owners who fail to live up to this responsibility can be held responsible for the injuries that result – ranging anywhere from a sprained ankle or broken arm to a spinal cord injury or even death.

However, because the extent of the business owners’ duty and whether they failed to meet is rarely clear cut and depends on the circumstances of each case it is important to consult an Ohio premise liability attorney as soon as possible. Indeed, stores and business owners act immediately to minimize their liability by immediately making accident reports to send to their insurance companies and their own group of premise liability attorneys. The best way to level the playing field is to immediately call your own Cleveland premise liability attorney.

At The Spitz Law Firm, you will be represented by such a premise liability attorney that has accumulated significant experience dealing with the various types of claims against business owners. These types of premise liability claims include:

Slip and Fall A slip and fall is a generic term used by premise liability attorneys for all injury that occurs when someone slips, trips and/or falls as a result of a dangerous or hazardous condition on business property. It includes falls as a result of a spilled or leaking products, somewhat concealed objects left on the floor, abrupt changes in flooring, ripped carpeting, improperly placed floor mats, or hard to see holes in the ground or parking lot. In limited circumstances, business owners may also be liable for accumulations of ice, snow or rain water, where such accumulations are not naturally occurring.

In order to recover on these types of slip and fall accidents, a victim, with the help of the right premise liability attorney, must prove that he or she had not been warned and was unaware of the condition, and that at least one of the following apply:

1. The business, or its employees, caused the unsafe condition (by spilling something and not cleaning it up, by digging a hard-to-spot hole in a heavily trafficked area, etc.); 2. The business, or its employees, knew about the condition but did not try to correct it by either fixing the problem or posting a visible warning sign; or 3. The business, or its employees, should have known about the dangerous condition, because a “reasonable” person would have found the problem based on the amount of time that had passed.

Falling Merchandise Occurring surprisingly more often than expected, customers are injured when heavy merchandise falls off store shelves. This is often the result of improper stacking by store employees or improperly designed shelving systems. Like slip and fall accidents, victims and their premise liability lawyer will have to prove that the business, or its employees, created, knew or should have known about the condition.

Negligent Conduct By Store Employees Sometimes store patrons are not hurt by dangerous conditions, but by the employees of the store or business. Just like businesses and companies are responsible for the automobile or truck accidents that their employees cause outside the store, the businesses and companies are responsible for the negligent conduct of their employees inside the store or business – such as running into patrons with tow motors or forklifts; spilling hot coffee or other hot liquids on diners; or dropping lumber or other heavy merchandise on a shopper.

Criminal Assaults Business Premises As your Cleveland premise liability law firm, we know that the most devastating injuries – and sometimes even death – occur when patrons of a business are assaulted, attacked and/or shot by criminals. Unlike being directly liable for the conduct of its employees, businesses are not directly liable for the conduct of criminals who commit these crimes on their property. But, under some circumstances Ohio law does hold these businesses responsible if they failed to provide adequate security after being warned of the potential criminal conduct directly or put on notice of such possibility through similar criminal conduct on their property or in the surrounding neighborhood. Each of these cases is extremely complex and dependant on host of variables, including facts specific to each case and the law that might apply. Therefore, it is important to call the right premise liability attorney as soon as possible in order to discuss your case specifically. While every store injury case is different, one thing remains the same: stores and business should be held accountable when they injure you. The best way to make them pay is to first call the right premise liability attorney. Call The Spitz Law Firm today for a free evaluation of your case.

Call The Right Cleveland Premises Liability Attorney 24/7 At: 1-888-70-RIGHT or (216) 291-4744