Premises liability is used in a personal injury case when the injury happened on someone else’s property due to an unsafe or defective condition. Like all personal injury cases, you must be able to prove that the property owner’s negligence led to your injury. There are several different types of premises liability cases and therefore, there are a number of ways to prove negligence in your case.

Types of premises liability cases

There are several different personal injuries that can be categorized as premises liability. All of the following can occur due to a dangerous condition on someone’s property:

• slip and fall cases
• snow and ice accidents
• inadequate maintenance of the premises
• defective conditions on the premises
• inadequate building security leading to injury or assault
• elevator and escalator accidents
• dog bites
• swimming pool accidents
• amusement park accidents
• fires
• water leaks or flooding
• toxic fumes or chemicals

The property owner’s duty of care and negligence

Although you may have been injured on someone else’s property, you can only get compensation if you were on their property lawfully and if the accident was due to the property owner’s negligence. Most states require property owners to exercise reasonable care in ownership maintenance of their property. If the property knew, or should have known, that their premises were in an unsafe condition and failed to fix the situation, they did not maintenance their property properly. The owner can then be proven negligent.

As owners are liable if they didn’t fix or pre-warn you about reasonably dangerous hazard on their property, you many not win the case if you weren’t on their property lawfully. Property visitors are divided into three categories: invitees, licensees and trespassers. If you fall into the trespasser category the landowner may not be liable for your injury.

If you’d like to speak to a lawyer about a premises liability case, contact us here.