When you visit someone else’s property, whether it is a shopping mall, hotel, pool, spa, or a private residence, you do not expect to suffer a serious personal injury. Unfortunately, many property owners fail to monitor and make repairs to their premises to protect visitors. Dangerous property conditions can include pot holes in a parking lot, spilled liquids, improperly stacked merchandise, broken balcony railings, missing steps, exposed pipes, exposed irrigation pipes, defective escalators or elevators, and cracks in the sidewalk. Injury victims may be able to pursue monetary damages from a careless property owner by filing a personal injury claim. The premises liability lawyers at Payer & Associates are aggressive and have more than 40 years of experience in premises liability law and can help you explore your legal options.
Asserting Your Right to Compensation for Your Injuries
Whether or not you can recover compensation after being hurt on someone else’s property depends in part on your status as a visitor to the premises. Only certain types of visitors, such as invitees, are owed the highest duty of care by the property owner or occupier.
Invitees are people invited to come onto the land for a reason or purpose connected with the property owner’s business dealings. Common examples include store customers and restaurant patrons. When a visitor is an invitee, the owner has a duty to repair or warn of any dangers that the owner knew or should have known about using ordinary care, and that the invitee would not have known about by using ordinary care.
This duty includes the responsibility to keep the premises reasonably free from foreseeable third-party crimes. If there was a history of muggings outside a particular restaurant, for example, the restaurant might face liability if it failed to fix broken lighting or neglected to hire security.
A lesser duty is owed to licensees and trespassers. Licensees are people who enter the property legally but solely for their own purposes, without an express or implied invitation. Trespassers are people who come onto the premises without a license or invitation and intrude for their own purposes. To licensees and trespassers, property owners owe only the duty to refrain from willfully or wantonly injuring them. Some different rules may apply in situations when children are trespassing on land because of something there that is particularly attractive to them, also referred to as an “attractive nuisance.”
If a plaintiff is successful in holding a defendant liable, he or she usually can recover compensatory monetary damages. These monetary damages may compensate for both objective and subjective forms of harm, such as medical bills, out-of-pocket expenses, lost wages, scarring or disfigurement, pain and suffering and loss of enjoyment of life. In the tragic event that a property owner’s carelessness causes a fatal accident, family members of the victim may be able to pursue monetary damages through a wrongful death claim.
Miami Premises Liability FAQs
- Are hotels liable for injuries that I sustained while a guest?
- Are witnesses important in a Florida slip and fall case?
- Can a building owner’s violation of a building code ever be used to help me win a Florida trip and fall case?
- Can I recover from a Florida hotel for injuries sustained when I slipped and fell in the hotel?
- Can I sue if I was a victim of an assault and battery in a shopping center parking lot?
- Do I have a claim if unsafe conditions on someone elses property caused my injury?
- Do I have a claim in Florida if unsafe conditions at a hotel caused my injury?
- Does an accident report have to be filled out at the time of the fall?
- Does an accident report have to be filled out at the time of the hotel injury?
- Does my reason for being on the property at the time of the incident affect my rights in a claim for damages in Florida?
- How can a business owner provide a reasonably safe environment?
Discuss Your Premises Liability Claim with a Miami Premises Liability Lawyer
If you are injured on someone else’s property due to a dangerous condition there, you may be able to recover damages by bringing a premises liability lawsuit. Whether you slip and fall at hotel, a pool, a spa, or a grocery store we can assist. Since there is only a limited time window within which to take legal action, you should consult an experienced Miami premises liability lawyer as soon as possible. We represent accident victims from Hialeah, South Miami, and other cities throughout Miami-Dade County, as well as in the Plantation area. Call us or contact us online for your free confidential consultation with one of our attorneys. We are available for home and hospital visits upon request and are available to meet with you 24 hours a day 7 days a week.
