Common Causes of Florida Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip and fall accidents occur for multiple reasons in various locations due to several types of dangerous conditions. Some frequent slip and fall accident scenarios include:

Wet Floors or Other Slick Surfaces: As an experienced slip and fall lawyer knows, these accidents often happen on slippery walking surfaces, either outside on wet pavement or inside on recently mopped or waxed floors. These types of slip-and-fall accidents often take place in grocery stores, supermarkets, and department stores.

Uneven or Damaged Surfaces: Cracked pavement, uneven floors, broken sidewalks, and potholes frequently cause fall injuries in Florida. Such conditions can lead to unexpected changes in walking surfaces, causing people to stumble, fall, and sustain serious injuries. Poor maintenance and uneven pavement tend to cause slip and fall conditions.

Poor Lighting: Insufficient lighting can make it difficult to see hazards like debris, uneven surfaces, or steps, leading to a slip and fall accident.

Debris or Obstacles: Items left in walkways, cords, rugs, or clutter can cause someone to suffer a slip and fall injury.

Faulty Stairs or Lack of Handrails: Damaged stairs or a lack of handrails can contribute to a slip and fall accident.

Conditions leading to a slip-and-fall incident are often resolved shortly following a slip-and-fall accident. As an experienced slip and fall lawyer can attest, eliminating the danger may serve to prevent additional incidents but also eliminates crucial evidence for your personal injury lawsuit. Recognizing that your fall claim could hinge on proving the conditions at the time of your fall, take photos or video immediately to preserve evidence. The experienced fall lawyers at Cohen & Juda, P.A. can assess the evidence required to prove your slip and fall case during your free consultation.

Where Does a Slip and Fall Incident Commonly Occur?

As fall lawyers know, these accidents can take place in various locations, including:

• Parking lots
• Shopping malls
• Grocery stores
• Pool decks
• Amusement parks
• Restaurants
• Outdoor locations including uneven sidewalks and driveways

What to Do After a Slip and Fall in Florida

After a slip and fall in Florida, taking the following steps is vital.

1. Seek Medical Attention: Your health is your priority. Seek immediate medical help, even if your injuries appear minor to support your well-being and generate medical records that can serve as crucial evidence in your personal injury lawsuit.
2. Report the Accident: Notify the property owner or the person responsible for its upkeep about the incident. If the fall happened at a business, file an official report and secure a copy.
3. Document Everything: Take pictures of the accident scene, including the dangerous condition that caused your fall. While the details are fresh in your mind, write them down. It could serve as valuable evidence.
4. Identify Witnesses: If there were any witnesses, collect their contact information because their statements can corroborate your account of the incident.
5. Preserve Evidence: Keep the clothes and shoes you were wearing during the accident without washing them. They might be useful evidence.
6. Request surveillance footage: If the accident happened in a store or other business, ask the owner, store manager or building manager for a copy of the surveillance footage.
7. Do Not Give Statements: Don’t discuss the accident or your injuries with anyone except your personal injury attorney and your doctor. Anything you say can be used against you in your claim.

Premises Liability Law: How to Prove Negligence in a Slip and Fall Case

In pursuing a premises liability claim for a slip and fall incident, a victim must prove the property owner’s negligence. To be held legally responsible, a plaintiff must prove that the property owner had actual or constructive knowledge of the dangerous condition that caused the accident.

With the assistance of your fall accident lawyer, you must demonstrate the following:

1. Duty of Care: The plaintiff must establish that the property owner/defendant owed them a duty of care — meaning they were obligated to maintain a safe environment. For example, a store owner owes a duty of reasonable care to prevent foreseeable harm to patrons. Duty of care generally applies when the injured party is lawfully on someone else’s property.
2. Breach of Duty: Plaintiffs must demonstrate that negligent property owners breached their duty of care by failing to maintain safe conditions on the property, fix a known hazard, or neglected to adequately warn visitors about a dangerous condition.
3. Causation: The plaintiff must prove that their injury was directly caused by the breach of duty of the liable party — if the liable party had fulfilled their duty of care, the accident would not have occurred.
4. Damages: The plaintiff must show they suffered harm (medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, etc.) due to the injury.

What Type and How Much Compensation Can Fall Victims Pursue in Florida?

Many factors determine the type and amount of compensation slip and fall victims can pursue following an accident. Damages fall into two categories: economic and non-economic.

Economic Damages

A slip and fall victim could lose income due to an inability to work, either temporarily or permanently. They may also experience a decreased earning capacity if their injuries limit their ability to perform specific job functions.

The types of economic damages you may be able to recover for a slip-and-fall accident include:

• Medical bills
• Lost wages and future earning capacity

Non-economic Damages

After a fall accident, a victim could suffer from mental anguish and loss of enjoyment of life. The trauma of the accident and the stress of dealing with the aftermath can lead to conditions like depression and anxiety. In Florida, a victim of a slip and fall accident can seek compensation for these damages through a personal injury lawsuit.

Types of non-economic damages you may be able to recover include:

• Pain and suffering
• Emotional distress
• Loss of enjoyment of life

Statute of Limitations for a Florida Slip and Fall Case

In 2023, Florida passed tort reform, which reduced the statute of limitations for personal injury cases from four years to two years. With the enactment of tort reform, the majority of personal injury cases, including slip and fall cases, must be filed within two years of the date of injury.

This law also changed the doctrine of pure comparative negligence to a modified comparative negligence system. Under this system, if a jury determines that a plaintiff is more than 50 percent responsible for their injury, they are not eligible to recover damages.