Category: Slip and fall accident

Accident Cases in Court, Slip and fall accident, Timely Notice of Claim

Notice to Insurance Carrier

“I received a letter from an attorney notifying me that someone fell outside my home when I wasn’t there. The letter is asking me to turn it over to my homeowner’s insurance carrier.  But why should I do that if I don’t even know if the accident really took place? Won’t my homeowner’s insurance rate go up?”

Yes, you should turn the letter over to your homeowner’s insurance carrier. The whole point of having homeowner’s insurance is to cover you for losses that arise on your property, even if you are not there. The insurance carrier has an entire claims department, eager to investigate the claim against you. The carrier also have attorneys that they are paying that will defend if the case against you goes to court. And, if you have a damages judgment entered against you, the carrier will indmenify you for your loss.

You should not worry about your insurance rate, you should worry about giving your insurance carrier timely notice of the claim against you. If you do not turn the letter over to your insurance carrier, you may lose the right to have the carrier investigate and defend the claim against you. All policies insist that the carrier receive timely notice of any potential claims against you covered by the policy. If you fail to turn over that letter from the attorney to your insurance company, and then, you receive a summons a year later, you could be facing a disclaimer.  A disclaimer means, you pay for your own lawyer and investigator and you pay any judgments against you.

The risk is not worth it.  It is much easier to fight a rate hike assesed against you for a bogus claim, than it is to fight the insurane carrier to defend you in a lawsuit because you failed to give it timely notice.

Landlord Liability, Slip and fall accident, Trip and Fall Accidents

Worn Steps

“I fell inside my building on interior stairs while I was walking to my apartment. There was nothing on the stairs, but the building is old and the steps are quite worn. Do I have a case?”

You might have a case, depending upon how worn are the steps and and if that wear created a hazzardous condition on which to walk.  This is the type of defect of which our office would make a personal inspection and possibly hire an expert to examine the steps and take measurements.

Even though you may have walked up these stairs many hundreds or thousands of times, if the stairs are in such a condition so as to create a hazardous condition, then your landlord would be responsible for maintaining the stairs in a safe and passable condition.  Whatever your injuries are, we advise all of clients to go to the doctor and follow your trusted physician’s instructions so you can recover from your injuries.

 

Landlord Liability, Slip and fall accident, Trip and Fall Accidents

Landlord Liability

“I fell inside of my own apartment. Can I sue my landlord?”

There is more information an attorney would need to know before he or she could really answer your question.  But my best answer is if you fell because of something you, as the tenant did, to create the condition which caused your fall, then the answer is no. However, if the the reason you fell is because of a maintenance issue the landlord is responsible for, then yes, you can sue your landlord.

To illustrate the first type of case — an accident caused by something you did — you would look at what you were doing at the time of the accident.  If you fell because you tripped on the cord to the vacuum cleaner when you were tidying up, then the landlord is not responsible. Similarly, if you fell on a wet floor because you were mopping your kitchen or bathroom floor, then you cannot sue your landlord. In both instances, you created the condition which caused your accident.

But if there is a leaky pipe in your your apartment that your landlord neglected to fix despite your repeated complaints, then you can sue your landlord. Similarly, if your landlord undertakes repairs in your apartment, but creates a hazardous condition, like construction debris or tools on the floor and someone trips and falls on one of the hazards, the the landlord is liable.