Sumter Slip & Fall Lawyer
Every year, serious falls send over eight million Americans to hospital emergency rooms. The Sumter slip & fall lawyers at the Stanley Law Group attend to the immediate and long-term needs that these victims have.
These immediate needs include proper medical care. Falls often cause head injuries. Initial symptoms include minor pain, confusion, and disorientation. Therefore, busy ER doctors often misdiagnose head injuries as accident shock, a transient condition. So, victims don’t get treated for their permanent and degenerative head injuries. Attorneys connect victims with doctors who focus on injury-related conditions.
Over the long term, these bills, and other accident-related expenses, must be paid. Additionally, these victims, and their families, must put the incident behind them and move on with their lives. So, an attorney diligently builds a strong case and obtains the financial compensation these victims need and deserve.
Sumter Slip & Fall Lawyers and the Duty of Care
The duty of care, which is roughly based on the story of the Good Samaritan, is the cornerstone of a negligence claim. The Good Samaritan went out of his way to help an injured traveler. Likewise, property owners must go out of their way to address slippery floors, large sidewalk cracks, and other fall injury hazards.
How far out of their way must they go? The answer to this question mostly depends on the relationship between the victim and owner.
- Invitee: Most fall injury victims are invitees. They have direct or indirect permission to visit the building or house for commercial or social purposes. Property owners have a duty to ensure these guests are reasonably safe. They must promptly address and completely remove injury hazards.
- Licensee: Some uninvited guests have a “license” to visit the property. This license basically means the owner doesn’t care if the person is there or not. A guest of an apartment tenant is a licensee. Since the relationship is not as close, the duty of care is not as high, and these people are legally entitled to less protection. A “Caution Wet Floor” sign may be sufficient.
- Trespasser: Quite simply, guests are trespassers if they don’t have permission to enter and they don’t benefit the owner. A door-to-door salesperson who ignores a “no solicitors” sign is usually a trespasser. Owners must refrain from intentionally harming trespassers, but other than that, the law doesn’t protect them, at least in most cases.
This classification system is quite complex, mostly because the categories overlap. Tom the tenant is an invitee at an apartment complex unless he does not pay his rent or follow another rule. Then, he becomes a trespasser.
Knowledge of Hazard
Theoretical responsibility is not enough. A Sumter slip & fall lawyer must also prove actual or constructive knowledge by a preponderance of the evidence.
Smoking guns that prove actual knowledge include restroom cleaning reports, prior complaints of fall hazards, and prior falls. Lawyers often find these smoking guns rather late in the process. So, if a case settles too early, the best evidence, and therefore maximum compensation, may be unavailable
Constructive knowledge (should have known) usually hinges on the time-notice rule. For example, owners have a duty to pick up banana peels before they become black and gritty, as if they were walked on.
A preponderance of the evidence means more likely than not. That’s one of the lowest standards of evidence in South Carolina law. So, a little evidence goes a long way.
Connect With a Savvy Sumter County Lawyer
Injury victims are entitled to substantial compensation. For a free consultation with an experienced Sumter slip & fall lawyer, contact the Stanley Law Group. The sooner you reach out to us, the sooner we start working for you.
