Slip & fall accidents can happen at any place whether indoors or outdoors. When they happen, they can cause harm, pain or injury to the victim. In fact, the majority of accidents that cause injury to the elderly are as a result of slipping or tripping. The factors that can cause slipping or tripping are many ranging from poor lighting to torn carpeting, narrow stairs, changes in flooring, wet floor and cracked or broken sidewalks among others. If you sustained any form of injury from a slip and fall accident, you may qualify for compensation by holding the property owner responsible. However, for that to happen, you must prove fault.

Proving Fault

In order to hold the property owner responsible for the injury, you must prove that the owner did not act carefully to prevent slipping. You must also prove that you were not in not seeing or avoiding the issue that caused your fall. Basically, you are required to prove that the issue that caused your fall was a dangerous condition that the property owner knew about. The condition must present an unreasonable risk to people on the property. Furthermore, the victim must not have anticipated that the condition exists under the circumstances. This means that it is not every slip and fall that can be compensated for as every individual has a responsibility to be aware of and to avoid the obvious dangers.

To establish that the owner had a full understanding of the dangerous situation, you should show that the owner was aware of the condition and negligently failed to fix it, the owner created the condition or the condition was there for a length of time that would adequate for the owner to discover and correct the condition before your fall.

Reasonableness

It is important to note that all slip & fall accidents hinge on whether the liable person acted reasonably. To determine the reasonability of the case, the law focuses on whether the owner puts the effort in keeping the property safe and clean. Before, suing the owner, you should establish the reasonability of the owner’s actions such as cleaning routine or whether there was a legitimate reason why the object that caused the fall was there.

Carelessness

When it comes to slip & fall accidents, most states follow the rule of comparative negligence in determining the damages that you can get. Therefore, you must determine your likeliness of being found to be comparatively negligent. For example, were your actions at the time of the accident could have played a role in your fall? You should show enough that you were not acting negligently.

Conclusion

The best way to go about slip and fall accidents is to consult an experienced lawyer before starting any legal process to help you determine whether you can get compensation.