Personal Injury Lawyer Blog
When a client of my Sacramento Law Firm is injured in a slip and fall accident, one of the first questions they have is, “Who is a fault?”. There are three possible answers to this question, the first of which I generally addressed in my last blog, being the owner of the property. The other two options are both parties or the injured party itself.
Both parties responsible…
When both parties are responsible it is called “comparative negligence” and means that the carelessness of the injured person and the carelessness of the owner resulted in the accident. There are varying degrees of comparative negligence and liability is distributive by percentage of responsibility owed to the accident (i.e. 30% caused from plaintiff and 70% caused by defendant).
Injured person is responsible…
In a slip and fall case, there lies the doctrine of “open and obvious”. Throughout my years as a Personal Injury Attorney in Sacramento, I have seen this question pop up time and again… was the dangerous condition that caused the plaintiff’s injuries open and obvious? This question is of key importance because an affirmative answer could place liability on the injured party.
When a dangerous condition is “open and obvious”, it means that a reasonable person in the same situation would have seen the dangerous condition and avoided it. For example, a store just cleaned up a spill and the floor is still wet. Management places a sign that reads “Caution: Wet Floor” in front of the wet spot . If someone slips and falls on the wet spot, the liability will most likely fall on the injured person because a reasonable person in the same situation would have seen the caution sign and avoided the wet floor.
If you have been hurt from a slip and fall accident and believe that it was not an open and obvious situation, please call our Law Offices, we would love to help.
Look for those caution signs…
For more information, please read the article on findlaw.com.