Slip and Falls - not quite as simple as you might think

If you should slip and fall and become injured, you might assume that so long as you could prove you did fall, and you did suffer some physical injury, you would automatically be entitled to compensation from the owner or renter of the property where you fell. In fact this is not always the case. In order to succeed in a lawsuit against the owner or renter of the property, you must show fault of some sort on their part.

Let me give an example: Every year, many people slip and fall in supermarkets, such as Safeway, IGA etc. People drop produce and other items on the floor and later someone else slips on that item or on the resulting slippery floor. In such a case, the court will hold the supermarket blameless if the store had a policy requiring sweeping of the floor frequently enough and if the store was following that policy. Typically, the store keeps a log to record all sweeps. The same would apply to any spills or water on the floor. Such logs are ample evidence in Court to prove the store was following their policy. In the absence of such a log, your lawyer may decide to hire someone, perhaps a university student, to go to the store as a 'shopper' and to watch and record the frequency of the sweeping. This evidence can be used to counter the store's statement, where they have no log of their own, that 'we meticulously follow our sweeping policy'.

My first example above described a situation in which the slip and fall was the result of something on the floor which caused you to fall. Here is a slightly different situation: the stairway. If you are using someone else's stairway and you slip and fall, once again, you must prove some fault on the part of the tenant or landlord. In this type of case, your lawyer will typically hire an engineer to inspect the stairway. The engineer will confirm whether or not the stairway was built according to code - Was the run/rise ratio according to code? Were hand rails required? Did it require lighting? etc.

Even if the owner or renter are at fault for some reason, you may not have a complete victory. The owner or renter, usually represented by a lawyer paid for by their insurance company, will attempt to shift part of the blame, or liability, onto you. What type of shoes were you wearing? Had you been drinking? Did you willingly choose to walk down the stairway knowing that it was so dark as to be unsafe?

Now that you can see that a 'simple slip and fall' is not necessarily a 'simple slip and fall', it is important that you see a lawyer before making a claim or being interviewed by the owner or renter's lawyer or insurance adjuster.