Slip and Fall Attorney - Glendale CA

Severe injuries can be sustained from slip & fall accidents. The statistics from the CDC indicate slips and falls as the No. 1 cause of Traumatic Brain Injuries irrespective of the ages of the victims. The statistics for those who are over the age of 65 are more saddening as slip & fall accidents are the No.1 cause of death for the elderly.

Regardless of the fact that slip & fall accidents are a common occurrence, the insurance company is always quick to blame you for the accident or refuse your claim entirely. Their common reaction to insurance claims for slip & fall accidents by victims is to pay nothing or as less compensation as possible. Most times they ignore your claim hoping that you give up. Therefore, if you suffered an injury in a supermarket, then the insurance company for the supermarket may pull these dirty tricks until you give up or settle for less compensation unless you have an experienced slip and fall attorney on your side who knows all their dirty tricks and is ready to deal with them until they pay you the compensation that you deserve.

Our Big Ben Slip & fall attorneys have decades of experience dealing with claims arising from slip & fall accidents from all over the nation.

Therefore, if you or your loved one got injured due to a slip and fall, our Big Ben slip and fall attorneys are here ready to represent you in your slip & fall accident case.

FAQs on Slip & Fall

Can I file a slip and fall lawsuit in court?

Yes. However, in order to prove your slip and fall case, you need to establish liability against the property owner, lessee, or the person in control of the property in which you got injured in a slip and fall accident.

What you need to prove is that the said property owner, lessee, or the person in control of the property (i.e., defendants) at the time of your slip and fall accident allowed a hazardous condition to exist that posed injury to visitors or the premises including yourself. You can also prove that the said defendants ought to have known of the existence of the dangerous condition but failed to rectify it and as a result of such an omission you slipped, fell, and sustained injuries.

It is not necessary that they know of the existence of the dangerous condition but failed to rectify it. It is enough to show that the said defendants themselves are the ones who created the dangerous condition and failed to rectify it.

You must be wondering what is with all these “dangerous conditions”

The following are some of the common dangerous/hazardous conditions which can cause slips & falls.

• Spills on the ground of premises e.g., oil, detergents
• Electrical cables across the floor of premises where customers can trip and fall
• The floor is either broken or not even
• Broken stairs
• Damaged or absent railings for stairs

The law in California requires that any property owner or those who control the premises keep them in a safe condition so as not to endanger those persons who happen to visit the premises.

Can a negligent property owner be sued for slip and fall on their premises?

The answer depends on whether you are able to prove that at the time of the slip and fall, the person who was in control of the premises (it can be the property owner, lessee, or any other person) failed to do proper maintenance of the premises hence causing you to slip, fall and sustain injuries.

Can premises/property owners be sued for slip & fall on their premises?

• When a customer trips on loose carpeting in the supermarket and falls sustaining slip and fall injuries
• When the landlord fails to repair or replace the stairwell railing hence causing the tenant to slip, fall and sustain slip and fall injuries
• Where the construction site is left exposed hence passers-by get injured in the process

How hard or easy is it to prove a slip and fall claim?

Proving a slip and fall claim can be hard. Despite the requirement that negligent property owners and those in control of the property are to ensure that the property is safe, the same requirement is also placed upon anybody who visits the premises to be always on the lookout to avoid getting injured.

It is for this reason that the defendants (property owner and those in control of the property), as well as their insurers, shift part of the blame to the victim by arguing that the victim failed to notice the hazardous condition and take the necessary precautionary measures to avoid getting injured.

Common defenses used by any negligent property owner against slip & fall claims

Some of the other defenses that the defendants can raise so as to avoid your claim party or entirely include:

• The victim was distracted at the time of the accident. They can claim that the source of distraction was texting while walking,
• The victim got injured at a place designated as out of bounds to the public
• Where the slip and fall accident is a result of some liquid spilled on the floor of the supermarket, the supermarket owners can argue that the spillage has just occurred and not soon enough to be noticed by the supermarket employees to clean it up.
• The victim was wearing slippery shoes at the time of the accident hence increasing the risk of slipping and falling
• The plaintiff was wearing footwear that could cause a fall.

These are the common defenses that property owners use in court and succeed in defending the victim’s slip & fall claim either partly or fully.

It is therefore vital that the victim of a slip and fall accident record as much evidence as possible so as to prove their slip and fall injury case later. This can be done by taking pictures and recording videos of the slippery floor or any other hazardous condition mentioned above. It is also wise to contact witnesses and record their contact information as their testimonies will later be useful in proving your slip and fall case in court.

But most importantly, you should ensure that you contact our Big Ben Slip and fall accident lawyers for a free consultation. Given how hard it can be to establish that it is the owner of the premises who is to blame for the accident, you should contact a seasoned slip & fall accident attorney as soon as possible while the evidence is still fresh and available.  Reaching out to our Big Ben Accident slip and fall accident lawyers as soon as possible enables us to send our investigators to the scene of the accident and record/recover evidence promptly. You should know that the owners of the premises will not be sitting around waiting for you to collect evidence. They will destroy any traces of evidence as soon as possible and make your slip and fall case hard to prove. Your quick decision to call us is just what is needed for you to claim the full compensation that you deserve.

Computation of compensation that you deserve

One problem that most victims of slip & fall face are that they don’t know just how much compensation they are entitled to. This is the reason they might accept an insurance settlement offer from the insurance companies thinking that their offer is enough. However, if you can contact an experienced slip and fall lawyer, you can know for certain how much compensation you are looking at in your claim and compare it with the offer made by the insurers. You will notice that you were about to be robbed of more than three-quarters of your compensation!

What does your compensation entail?

• Medical expenses for past, present, and future medical bills
• Lost of income for the past, present, and future
• Other expenses paid out of your pocket due to the accident e.g., for the nanny while you were hospitalized
• Non-economic damages for pain and suffering due to your injuries
• Punitive damages – this is only awarded where the conduct of the defendant while causing your accident was outrageous e.g., intentionally pouring oil on the floor and uploading videos of victims falling to the internet
• Damages for wrongful death – this is only where the injuries suffered by the victim were fatal and your loved one died

If at the time of the accident you were earning income from your employment, you can claim compensation for the income that you have lost in the past and those that you have lost in the future due to your incapacity to continue being employed at your former job due to the injuries. You could be facing other medical treatments in the future also. The compensation for these future losses also needs to be taken into account while calculating and claiming compensation from the at-fault parties. However, proving these kinds of damages can be hard as it requires the testimony of an expert who can testify in court on your behalf.

For instance, when claiming damages for future medical bills, you will need the testimony of a doctor who can tell the court how many medical procedures that you are still supposed to undergo in the future and how much each procedure would cost.

Another type of compensation that could be hard to prove is damages for pain and suffering. This is because it is hard to quantify the pain and suffering that you endured during and after your injury. That is why you need an experienced slip and fall accident attorney who knows all that needs to be proved in order to ensure that you get the maximum damages for pain and suffering. The thing with courts is that it is all about proof/evidence. If you cannot prove that you are not given what you claim. Therefore, you need an expert who knows what evidence to be produced, and how to be present in court in order to be accepted and win your slip and fall case.

It is common for compensation for tragic slip & fall and the resultant injuries to even reach 6-7 figures. With all these figures at stake, you better ensure that the slip and fall lawyers that you hire is good enough to reap for you all of it.

How long do you have before filing a slip & fall lawsuit?

Ever heard of the statute of limitation? It is the enemy of all lawsuits. Basically, there is a specific period within which to file your lawsuit before time runs out and you are locked out of court permanently. For slip & falls, the statute of limitation in California says that you only have 2 years since the date when the accident occurred in order for you to file your slip & fall lawsuit in court.

This time can even be tragically shorter (i.e.,120 days) since the date when the accident happened) if your slip & fall happened within the property belonging to the government.  

The statute of limitation is longer if the victim in a slip & fall is a minor. In such a case, the minor has another 2 years after their 18th birthday to file a slip & fall lawsuit in court.

The effect of the statute of limitation is so serious that if the time goes past that which is provided by the law before your file your slip & fall case in court, then your entire claim will be thrown out immediately. The court will not even bother to listen to how serious your injuries were or how outrageous the actions of the defendant were. In fact, it does not matter if the actions of the defendant caused the death of your loved one.

It is therefore important to contact our Big Ben slip attorneys today if you think that you have a slip & fall claim against someone. The earlier the better so that we can determine how much time you have remaining before you are locked out by statute of limitation.

What is the Average figure for settlements and verdicts for slip & fall cases?

Slip & fall claims do not have fixed figures for amounts awarded in the settlement. This unpredictability is worsened by the fact that California awards damages based on a legal principle known as comparative negligence.  What this means is that if the court finds that the victim of the accident was partly to blame for the accident and the subsequent injuries sustained, then the court will proceed to carve out a certain amount of compensation awarded to the plaintiff depending on the percentage of blameworthiness of the victim.

For instance, if Rachel was awarded compensation of $100,000 and the jury finds her liable 50% for her accident, then she will end up receiving only 50% of the compensation i.e., $50,000.

An example of such a situation is when the plaintiff was walking around a grocery store when it happens that some liquid had been spilled on the floor. At the time the victim was on his/her phone texting. The court may apportion the blame for the accident to both the plaintiff and the defendant depending on how the court finds each of them liable for the slip & fall accident.

Factors that determine how much compensation a slip & fall victim is entitled to

It is noteworthy that every slip & fall accident has its own unique facts which determine how much the victim is entitled to compensation. These factors include: 

• The severity of the injuries sustained in the slip & fall accident
• The age of the victim and the health status prior to the accident
• How the victim’s quality of life is affected by the accident
• Effects of the injuries sustained from the slip & fall accident on the earning capacity of the victim

Damages such as medical expenses and income losses are easy to calculate. However, other damages such as pain and suffering are hard to quantify in terms of money. Therefore, your attorney needs to prove how your injuries have negatively impacted your life and that as such you are entitled to a higher amount of compensation.

Given the experience of attorneys at Big Ben Lawyers in handling slip & fall accidents, they can use their past slip and fall cases to assess and determine how much compensation you are entitled to.

How long does a slip & fall lawsuit take before you get your compensation?

There is no fixed timeline on how long it takes for your slip & fall accident lawsuit to conclude before your get your compensation. There are a number of factors that determine how long a case takes in court before the verdict or settlement is reached. But is our primary concern as Big Ben slip and fall lawyers is to get you the compensation that you deserve.

Factors that determine how long your slip & fall lawsuit takes

• Defendant’s response to your claim
• How complex your case is?
• The kind of injuries suffered

It is common for those injuries where minors are victims to be negotiated and settled out of court. It is common for the lawyers for the minor and the defendant to negotiate and reach an out-of-court settlement without having to proceed to trial.

Another factor that depends on how quickly the case is resolved is how reasonable the settlement offer that the insurance company makes. As mentioned above, the insurance companies have a tendency to shift blame to the victim of make a ridiculously settlement amount. In such slip and fall cases, the victim has no choice but to proceed to court and seek the proper compensation deserved.

We at Big Ben Lawyers are ready to proceed to trial if it means that you get the compensation that you deserve. This is especially so where the plaintiff sustained serious injuries and the defense lawyers are adamant about offering just compensation.

At Big Ben Law Firm, we have decades of experience dealing with insurance companies and defendants. At the same time, we have the means to sustain your case through trial and ensure that the compensation that you get is a just outcome for you.

Is it really necessary to hire a slip & fall accident attorney?

Yes. Given the nature of injuries that you have suffered, the money lost and to be lost in the future, the ever-climbing medical bills, etc., you need to ensure that you stand the best chance of getting the full amount of compensation that you deserve. That would not be possible if the insurance companies and the defendants that you are going after having vast resources to ensure that you get nothing out of it, or if you insist then you get as little as possible.

Insurance adjusters deal with slip & fall claims on a daily basis. In fact, they get paid depending on how quickly they do away with your claim and how little you get in the end. These are people who are properly motivated to frustrate all your efforts. At the same time, you are busy stressing about your medical, pain and suffering, and the fast-dwindling savings. You might not have the time and the energy to fight against them on your own. That is why you need to hire an experienced slip and fall accidents lawyer in order to deal with them properly.

At Big Ben Law Firm, we are ready to give you answers to the questions that have been going through your head including if you can afford our attorney’s fees. We charge our attorney’s fees on a contingency basis. This means we won’t ask you for a penny unless and until we win your slip & fall accident case for you. we value our attorney-client relationship. 

Contact us today for a free consolidation.