Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip and Fall Accidents Account for Millions of Injuries Each Year

According to the National Safety Council (NSC), falls are among the most common causes of unintentional injuries in the country, and account for nearly 9 million visits to the emergency room. Each Los Angeles slip and fall attorney at The Rudman Law Firm, APC has handled hundreds of personal injury cases which arise from a wide variety of circumstances in which victims have slipped and fallen, including:

• Liquid and food spills
• Freshly mopped floors
• Non-slip resistant flooring, carpeting and floor mats
• Walkway debris
• Algae covered sidewalks
• Improperly constructed stairways and hand rails

A slip and fall accident can give rise to a premises liability case. In Los Angeles, and all of California, a premises owner or controller is legally obligated to use reasonable care in keeping its property in a reasonably safe condition. If the property owner fails to do so, by negligently creating or allowing a slip hazard on its premises, the owner may be liable for the damages suffered by a slip and fall victim.

The attorneys of The Rudman Law Firm, APC have devoted their entire careers to representing personal injury victims. Together, our lawyers have over 75 years of combined experience advocating for full and fair compensation for fall victims in premises liability cases in Los Angeles, Studio City and all of Southern California.

What Must Be Proven in a Slip and Fall Case

Many mistakenly believe that a property owner is automatically responsible for any slip and fall injury that occurs on its premises. Such is not the case. In order to hold an owner or controller of a property liable, an injured victim must prove that:

• a condition on the property created an unreasonable risk of harm;
• the owner or controller either created the dangerous condition, or knew, or through the exercise of reasonable care should have known, about the dangerous condition; and
• unreasonably failed to repair it, protect against harm caused by it, or give sufficient warning of it

Challenges often arise in proving that an owner or controller of a property created a dangerous condition, or knew, or should have known about it. For example, in a case where a person slips on a puddle on the floor of a supermarket, the injured victim would have to prove that either an employee of the supermarket spilled or poured the liquid on the floor, or knew that the puddle was on the floor and did not do anything about it, or that the puddle was on the floor for a long enough time that had the supermarket employees conducted a reasonable inspection of the store, the store would have known about it. It is the injured person's burden to prove this element. If you've had a slip and fall accident in Los Angeles, our lawyers will review with you possible ways to prove that the property owner created, knew about, or should have known about, the condition that caused you to slip and fall.

How We Use Experts in Slip and Fall Cases

We regularly hire safety engineers to test the slip resistance of a floor or flooring material. By using a device called a tribometer, an expert can determine the coefficient of friction, or friction force, between two surfaces in contact with each other, such as a shoe and a floor. The expert then compares the test results to the recommended standards in the industry for slip resistance of a walkway or flooring material. By doing so, the expert can help to prove that a certain type of flooring, when wet, is an unreasonably dangerous condition. Experts can also be used to show that a property owner, such as a supermarket or retail store, was negligent it its inspection practices, by not conducting frequent enough inspections to discover potentially dangerous conditions on the premises.

Contact our Law Firm Today for a Free Consultation

With a free consultation, you will receive an evaluation of your potential case by a qualified and experienced Los Angeles slip and fall lawyer at The Rudman Law Firm, APC. When we accept a case, we utilize our over 75 years of combined legal skill and knowledge in this area of the law to fight for the compensation you deserve. Please call our Encino office at (818) 769-6969 or toll free at (844) 478-3626 / (844) 4RUDMAN. We only work on a contingency fee basis, so that our clients do not have to pay fees from their pockets. We only collect fees if and when we recover money for you.