A normal slip and fall injury can cause a lifetime permanent disability, neck injuries, serious head concussions, and whatnot. On top of that, you will need to bear long medical bills, several days or months of missed work, and loss of quality of life. Hence, you need to take it seriously and teach the liable party or parties a lesson to correct the negligent mistake to save others. In this matter, premise liability lawyers can help you build strong cases. It’s because they know the seriousness and severity of damages it could cause to anyone. Read this article to fully understand how they build your case.
How do premise liability lawyers build strong cases?
Hiring a lawyer for your premise liability case is the most suitable step you can take in such cases. They handle many cases in their career and they know the potential damages one can suffer if not handle the liable party properly. That’s why, we will tell you why and how it makes a significant impact on your case to have a lawyer on your side.
Why do you need to hire a premises liability attorney?
In any state, it is said by law that the premise owner or occupier must keep their property safe for the visitors. This includes residential as well as commercial properties.
- If you have to prove the defendants are “at fault” you may need a lawyer to prove that.
- It’s best to have a premises liability lawyer because they know the ins and outs of the law and the levels of negligence.
- If the property owner has failed to provide property duty of care towards their premises, and someone got hurt, they’re liable for that. Also, now they can be legally held responsible for their negligence.
Sometimes it gets very complicated and difficult to prove the negligence of the defendants if the accident happened at a large chain store. This is because they mostly have their own liability lawyers to handle such claims. But in a house or a small commercial store, it can be easy to fight the case and prove their negligence.
If you plan to fight the case on your own, you must know all the ins and outs of the local premise liability laws. Otherwise, hiring a lawyer can help very much because they will make sure to pay attention to every detail of your case to prove your claim.
Here are some of the most important steps in a liability case in which a lawyer can help you very much.
- Investigating your claim
An experienced lawyer knows what to gather before formulating the case.
- The accident report
- Surveillance footage
- Pictures of the injury site as proof
- Pictures of your injuries
- Your medical records
- Pay stubs from your job
- Expert witness testimonies
These things are like the first aid for your case that you can help your lawyer with; taking photos, talking to witnesses, and consulting doctors immediately after the accident. But this is just the best practice; otherwise, your lawyer can also do that on your behalf and notify the owner about the accident and its repercussions.
- Determining the possible defendants against your case
In premises liability cases, the premise liability lawyers know who to sue for their negligence. It can be a little tricky to identify the defendants. That’s why your lawyers spend a lot of time to identify the defendants. It can be a single person, entity, or multiple people or entities responsible for this negligence all at once. Mind you that this is the most crucial initial step out of all because you don’t want to miss anyone in your case and lose your claim.
The more the number of defendants in your case, the more claims you can get. But at the same time, the more difficult it becomes to win the claim as they all may have their separate lawyers to fight against you.
- Taking witness statements
Taking witness statements is one of the crucial secondary steps in your premise liability case. A witness statement can strengthen your case by multiples so you should talk to witnesses as soon as possible. If you are able to after the accident, you can talk and get their contact information as soon as possible. After all, it is a straight power to your case. If you were unable to do so, your lawyer may find someone for you who saw what happened in the accident.
Since memories fade and opinions change, your lawyer would want to get your witnesses’ statements as soon as possible so they remain clear and true. This is one of the many reasons why you need a premises liability lawyer for your case as you cannot miss any opportunity to win the case.
- Calculation of the damages
Calculating your damages is also another very important aspect of your case which most people don’t know about. It’s best to have a Premise Liability Attorney on your side to keep it completely reasonable for both sides. Here are the damages that can and should be included in your premises liability claim.
- Hospital stays, doctor visits, ongoing treatment costs, tests, surgeries, physical therapies, and medications.
- Further ongoing medical costs in the future
- Property damage
- Loss of wages or job
- Pain and suffering due to the accident
Calculating damages is very difficult on your own as you don’t know what to count and what not to count. It includes your current damages like health and property damage to any future costs of repairing the property or your treatment. Also, the insurance companies usually try to lessen the calculations by several means and in that case, only a lawyer knows how to handle it.
- Providing expert witnesses
Expert witnesses can turn your case upside down very quickly. That’s why providing the right expert witnesses who can actually estimate the total claim on your behalf with your lawyer is very important. Your lawyer may call a doctor, a flooring expert, or an economist to get an estimate of the total damage. They may even call your actual treating doctor to get an estimate of the health damages. This mostly happens from within their network so you cannot easily do that on your own. And that makes your need for an expert Premises Liability Lawyer even stronger.
- Negotiations of the claim with insurance companies
Insurance companies do not want to pay anything at all for your damages. But as the damage actually occurred so now they will want to pay the least possible amount for your injury. That’s why they have expert lawyers to negotiate the claim amount to as less as possible. In this matter, you won’t know much about negotiations so your lawyer will surely help in this matter.
An experienced lawyer knows how to build a case to a height that you get the most out of your case in terms of liability claims. Usually, insurance companies send you a lowball as an offer to your claim which one should not accept right away. Consulting with your lawyer and having him/her negotiate the actual claim amount will be beneficial to you in a lot of ways.
- Help in filing a lawsuit.
If the negotiations don’t end up on a positive note, you might want to get legal attention from the court. This is another way of getting your claim but now inside the court, not outside the court as settlements.
But a layman doesn’t know how to file a court case as the legal system in every country is quite complicated in itself. So your lawyer will help you a lot in this matter as you can ask them to file and fight the case against the defendants. They know how to best construct an argument against the defendants and win the case to get the most out of your liability claim.
Wrapping up
Building a premise liability case is one of the expertise of a seasoned premise liability lawyer. That’s why you should not waste any time doing it yourself and hire a professional premise liability attorney to handle it on their own. Hiring them on a contingent fee basis is a two-way beneficial agreement as you only pay a certain percentage to the lawyer once you win the case and nothing otherwise.
FAQs – Frequently Asked Questions
What is the premises liability law in New York State?
The premises liability law in New York States that all property owners and occupiers should maintain a safe environment on their property for everyone. If they fail to do so, they will be held responsible for any injury that occurs to the visitors.
What is premises liability law in the Philippines?
Premises liability law in the Philippines states that all property owners must ensure the safety of others on their premises. Otherwise, they can be held liable for the plaintiff’s losses including economic, health, and physical damages.
What must be proven to win a strict liability case?
One must prove that they got hurt, the cause of injury was intentional or negligence of the premises owner and the levels of damages occurred to the plaintiff.
Leave a Comment