Slip-and-falls occur when someone trips or slips and falls on another individual’s property and gets injured. Injured people generally base this claim on the property owner being irresponsible and neglecting their premises. Therefore, the natural response to this type of injury is for the individual to seek monetary compensation from the property owner to cover their recovery costs.
However, there are some standard arguments that an injured individual might encounter during this type of claim from the defendant. Here are the two most common statements.
Non-negligence
The most common argument is that the property owner and workers were not negligent because they did not create the condition or did not have enough time to fix it before the incident. For example, if someone slips on a banana peel in the grocery store that someone dropped directly in front of them, the store owner did not have enough time to see and pick up the peel, so they would argue a lack of negligence.
Non-fault
Defendants may also claim the injured individual was responsible for their injury. For instance, the store owner may argue that any patron taking reasonable safety precautions would step over the banana peel instead of on it.
While they may present an argument, any valid slip-and-fall case should land the liability on the owner or operator of the property. Inside buildings, the owner or renter of the space should have to cover injury costs. The same goes for injuries outside structures, such as sidewalks and parking lots.
