Join our newsletter.

Slip and Fall Season: What You Need to Know

Now is the time of year that everyone is falling. We must get at least one to two calls a week. Everyone has the same question: “I fell and hurt my back … how much money can I get?” This is almost impossible to answer, and assumes that you were not at fault.

Let’s start with the actual reason for the fall. The law requires that everyone be aware of their surroundings. We all have a duty to ourselves to be aware of where we are walking.

If you slip and fall, there is a legal presumption that you were not paying complete attention to where you were walking and therefore you are negligent to some degree. If a court finds that you were 10% negligent, they will reduce any award you get by 10% to account for this negligence.

Just because you fall doesn’t mean that someone else is at fault. If the ground looks icy and you step on it anyway, you can’t complain that someone should have cleared the ground of ice after you fall.

Will you always have some degree of negligence? No. If you were distracted or otherwise prevented from paying attention to your surroundings you can not be at fault for not paying attention.

Now that liability is established, we can get down to dollars and cents. How much is an injury worth? That is a function of the type of injury, the severity of an injury, your medical bills and your pain and suffering. Contact an injury attorney PA for more information.

We must also look at the jurisdiction where the slip and fall occurred. Juries in urban areas tend to award more money than in rural areas where the mood is more conservative.

In the end, you need to look at the facts carefully to determine negligence and value. Anyone who can predict from a few facts, the value of an injury is doing nothing more than telling you a number just to get your business.

The best advice? Keep a good look out where you walk! If you do find that you’re in need of legal advice from a slip and fall, contact the injury attorney PA experts at Penglase & Benson.

Related News & Articles

Last Week Governor Wolf issued an Order closing all non-essential or non-life sustaining businesses in Pennsylvania. Making matters worse, the Governor later issued a shelter in place Order for Philadelphia and...

Losing a loved one is a tragedy that requires space to grieve, and the last thing a family needs at that time is to deal with unexpected costs. However, there are...

Your thoughtfully constructed estate plan could be disrupted by a challenge from a relative or friend who is unhappy with his or her inheritance (or lack of one). Here are 13...

Penglase & Benson Named a 2021 Law Firm 500 Honoree for Fastest Growing Law Firms in the U.S. – Two Years Running. Over the past 16 years, our team at Penglase...

In the last couple of years people have been trying to save money by reducing the amount of insurance they carry. Combined with the fact that many people have little money...

When Jim and Alice met during their first year in college they never would have thought the words “contested divorce” were anywhere in their future. They began dating at the end...

Divorce can be a frightening experience, partly because there is so much uncertainty involved. You look to the future and see only questions that you can’t answer “Where do I go...

A wave of people are running for bankruptcy protection. When the U. S. Supreme Court struck down the nationwide moratorium on evictions millions of people who had been living in homes...

Individuals and businesses can file for Chapter 7 Bankruptcy. When an individual files they get rid of their debts and go on with their lives. When a business files, its assets...

If you’ve been involved in an auto accident, a work-related injury, a fall in a public or private place, or if you’ve been exposed to an injury or disease as a...