Falls are the most common reason for emergency room visits in the U.S., with approximately eight million patients seeking treatment for fall-related injuries every year. Over one million people, or 12% of those patients, visit because of slip and fall accidents.
While some slips and falls happen due to carelessness or mobility issues, some result from someone else’s negligence. If someone else causes your slip and fall accident, you may qualify to seek compensation for your damages. An experienced slip and fall accident lawyer from Cellino Law can help.
What Is a Slip and Fall?
Property owners and managers, store management and various government agencies must maintain their properties, repairing or warning others about hazardous situations to prevent accidents and injuries. Many unsafe conditions can cause people to slip and then fall. Common hazards include:
- Uneven or damaged walking surfaces, including loose boards or tiles, curled or damaged carpet, cracked sidewalks and crumbling pavement
- Slippery surfaces, such as icy walkways or grocery store spills
- Broken or missing handrails and stairs
- Insufficient lighting
- Objects or obstructions in walkways
All these risks can lead to falls and resulting injuries.
Falling in your own home does not count as a slip and fall accident. To qualify, the responsible party must have known — or should have known — about the hazard in enough time to repair it. In cases where immediate repair isn’t an option, these parties should post warning signs or place barriers to keep people away.
Failing to keep a property safe through regular maintenance and ignoring the responsibility of making prompt repairs, in particular, is negligent behavior. If you can prove negligence, you probably have grounds to seek compensation through a personal injury claim.
What Is Negligence?
Legally, the obligation to keep a public property safe is a duty of care. To prove negligence, you must show that:
- Someone owed you a duty of care.
- That party breached their duty of care.
- The breach caused an accident.
- You sustained injuries or other damages as a direct result.
Proving negligence in slip and fall accidents is sometimes challenging. Responsible parties can claim they aren’t liable for the hazard for various reasons.
Why Are Slip and Fall Claims Complex?
To prove negligence, you have to gather definitive evidence that the responsible parties were aware of the hazardous conditions that caused your slip and fall. They may try to avoid liability by claiming that:
- They didn’t know about the danger
- You were in restricted areas
- You were careless and not paying attention to where you were walking
- You should have been aware of the dangers
Fortunately, a slip and fall accident lawyer from Cellino Law can conduct a thorough investigation to uncover evidence proving fault.
Are Slip and Fall Injuries Serious?
Some accident victims escape with minor scratches or bruises. However, slip and fall accidents can cause:
- Broken bones
- Back, hip and knee damage
- Concussions and other internal organ damage
- Spinal cord or traumatic brain injuries
These injuries can cause a wide variety of damages, both financial and otherwise. When someone else’s negligence injures you, you deserve compensation.
What Kinds of Compensation Can You Receive?
The compensation you might obtain depends on your specific circumstances. In many cases, you may qualify to receive economic and non-economic damages.
Economic Damages
Accidents and resulting injuries usually cause various expenses. Economic damages reimburse you for eligible costs that include:
- Medical bills: emergency services, hospital treatments and stays, surgeries, rehabilitation, medications, therapy, necessary medical equipment and transportation to and from medical appointments
- Lost wages: the amount of money you would have earned if you were able to work during your recovery and while taking care of accident-related tasks
- Replacement services: costs associated with hiring others to perform necessary daily tasks that your injuries prevent you from accomplishing
- Property damage: costs for repairing or replacing your personal property that was damaged or destroyed in your slip-and-fall accident
Economic damages are exact, matching your qualifying expenses dollar for dollar. You will need to keep thorough records of your expenses, bills and receipts. Your Cellino Law slip and fall attorney will use them to calculate your economic damages.
You may be eligible to seek future medical damages and lost wages for serious injuries requiring extensive medical treatments and prolonged periods away from work.
Non-Economic Damages
Some wounds resulting from slip and fall accidents aren’t necessarily visible, but they can produce temporary or permanent adverse effects on your quality of life. Non-economic damages compensate for these consequences:
- Pain and suffering
- Anxiety, depression and PTSD
- Inconvenience
- Permanent disability or disfigurement
- Losing your enjoyment of life
Other conditions may also qualify. Unfortunately, some are intangible and difficult to prove. Liable insurance companies often attempt to deny non-economic damages to avoid paying.
How Much Compensation Will You Receive for Your Slip and Fall Claim?
Your injuries and the effects they have on your life are unique. The value of your slip and fall claim is also unique. While some damages are straightforward, you may face some common challenges when seeking compensation for others. Your personal injury lawyer will assess your claim and calculate its worth, using various factors to arrive at a fair and reasonable figure.
Your Qualifying Expenses
The total of your economic damages takes into account all eligible accident-related expenses. These can vary significantly, even for people with similar injuries, depending on:
- The number and types of medical treatments you need and their associated costs
- How much money you typically earn
- The types of personal assistance you need
- The cost of repairing or replacing your personal property
Your attorney will make sure to include all eligible expenses.
Your Non-Economic Damages
Similar injuries can have minor or devastating effects on the lives of different people. Determining compensation amounts involve:
- The severity of the qualifying conditions
- The length of time you experience the repercussions
- The adjustments you have to make to your home or lifestyle to accommodate your injuries
- Whether your qualifying family members suffer certain losses, such as lack of support or loss of consortium, due to your injuries
In general, people who experience more severe, longer-lasting effects receive higher compensation. Your lawyer may need to hire medical experts and expert witnesses to examine you and testify on your behalf to prove that your claim for non-economic damages is valid and accurate.
Your Degree of Fault
More than one party is responsible for causing many accidents. If you are partially to blame for your slip and fall, you won’t receive as much compensation. For example, if your percentage of fault is 20%, your payout is reduced by 20%.
Liable insurance companies often place an unfair amount of blame on injured accident victims to lower the amounts they must pay in claims. Your Cellino Law legal team won’t let that happen to our clients.
Why Choose Cellino Law as Your Slip and Fall Accident Lawyers?
A Cellino Law firm has helped injured New Yorkers for over 60 years, assisting them with slip and fall and other types of personal injury claims. We know how to calculate damages accurately, find supporting evidence and negotiate with insurance companies to obtain maximum compensation for your damages.
Contact Cellino Law today to request your free case evaluation and find out how much your claim is worth. Call us at (888) 888-8888 to speak to a competent slip and fall accident lawyer, reach out via live chat or submit our online contact form.