Premises Liability Lawsuits Against Mega-Corporations Are Not Always as Simple as They Seem

If you are considering filing a personal injury lawsuit and have already started researching, you may have read that personal injury lawsuits are easier when the defendant is a corporation than when the defendant is an individual.  The reason for this is that, if you have been seriously injured, the money you are seeking to compensate for your medical bills and lost income is beyond the budget of most people.  In other words, even if the judge orders the defendant to pay you every penny you are requesting, there is no guarantee that all the money will reach your bank account anytime soon.  Meanwhile, corporations have much deeper pockets, and companies are required to carry insurance that covers accidents for which the company would be legally responsible.  In other words, it is easier to get the defendant and, if necessary, the judge to agree that the defendant can pay and that it is the defendant’s responsibility to pay.  Personal injury lawsuits against corporations are not necessarily a slam dunk, though.  It is still the plaintiff’s duty to prove that the defendant’s lack of caution caused the lawsuit.  If you are considering filing a premises liability lawsuit in connection to a slip and fall accident at a place of business, contact a South Carolina premises liability lawyer.

How Premises Liability Lawsuits Work

The legal doctrine that makes slip and fall accidents possible is called premises liability.  It holds that a customer can sue a place of business if the customer gets injured in an accident because the business management did not keep the premises safe.  To win a premises liability lawsuit, you must present evidence that conditions were inherently unsafe (for example, the floor of a store was slippery because of a spilled beverage) and that the management knew about could reasonably have known about the danger (for example, because employees were present and saw the liquid on the floor or because they failed to inspect all areas of the floor at frequent intervals).  As with other kinds of personal injury lawsuits, most premises liability lawsuits settle without going to trial.

Georgetown County Grandma Takes on Walmart

A South Carolina premises liability lawsuit that has made news recently is Evelyn Mcccray’s slip and fall lawsuit against Walmart.  In 2018, Mccray, who is in her 60s and acts as a full-time caregiver to her husband, who is disabled, was seriously injured when she slipped on some gravel and fell in the parking lot of a Georgetown Walmart. Mccray sued Walmart, and what could have been a routine premises liability claim became much more widely publicized when Mccray’s lawyer claimed that Walmart withheld and refused to provide important pieces of information during discovery, which is the phase of the lawsuit where the parties exchange information about the case.  It turned out that Walmart has been sanctioned in several states for withholding information during discovery in a variety of lawsuits, not all of them relating to premises liability.

Let Us Help You Today

The skill and dedication of your Columbia premises liability lawyer can make all the difference in the outcome of your lawsuit.  Contact The Stanley Law Group for a consultation on your case.

Resource:

fitsnews.com/2021/01/15/south-carolina-slip-and-fall-turns-into-major-headache-for-walmart/

https://www.thestanleylawgroup.com/how-has-the-pandemic-affected-traffic-accident-trends/