If you’re struggling to recover from a recent slip and fall, do you have the legal right to hold a business owner, property owner, or affiliated party responsible for your medical bills or other costs? According to Seattle slip and fall lawyers, you might.
You can work with our team to explore the circumstances that led to your accident. Those circumstances may entitle you to an insurance claim or personal injury lawsuit.
Phillips Law Firm has served Washington State for over 20 years. Our Seattle personal injury lawyers have provided legal representation to well over 20k clients, securing hundreds of millions of dollars in damages in our wake.
Our understanding of premises liability law can help you secure the financial support you need to pay your bills after your recent fall.
What is a Slip and Fall Accident?
The most common examples of slip and fall accidents can see you:
- Trip on a damaged sidewalk, in a store, or over an unmarked hazard on someone else’s property
- Lose your balance due to lack of visibility
- Fall as a result of untreated weather conditions and environmental hazards, including ice and rain
Many slip and fall accidents are the result of someone else’s negligence. It is always worth your time to investigate the circumstances that led to your fall before you let someone else blame you for the accident.
Identifying Negligence After a Slip and Fall
When you step onto someone else’s property, that person assumes responsibility for your well-being. That assumption of responsibility is known as the property owner’s duty of care. Property owners must uphold this duty whether they’re overseeing private residences, public-facing businesses, or properties in between.
How do landowners protect people like you from a slip and fall accident? They can:
- Invest in warning signs and put them out in locations where they’re easy to read
- Respond quickly to environmental accidents, including spills
- Train their employees, as applicable, to report and respond to hazardous conditions
- Invest in cameras, lights, and other security measures designed to make a property as accessible and safe as possible
Landowners and other parties that refuse to maintain their properties or invest in updated safety equipment actively make those properties more dangerous for invitees and licensees.
If you get into an accident and realize that a landowner violated the duty of care they owed you, you can make a case arguing that the landowner’s inattention entitles you to accident damages.
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Who’s Responsible for Your Slip and Fall Accident?
Before you file a personal injury lawsuit for slip and fall damages, you need to know who you have the right to sue. The legal process requires you to bring forward enough evidence to meet or exceed Washington’s burden of proof if you want to argue for loss-based support.
In other words, you need to use a large set of data like the following to make your case:
- Photos and video footage of your fall
- Statements from bystanders
- Electronic data, as applicable
- Environmental damage and/or physical debris
- Expert witness statements, as applicable
Can Contracts Influence Your Fight for Slip and Fall Compensation?
You also have to account for what contracts might be involved in your case. Say you slip and fall in a store in the mall. You then find out that the store owner is renting the storefront from the mall.
Do you sue the renter or the mall? The answer will depend on the dangerous conditions that led to your accident and the agreements between the renter and the rentee.
Our Seattle slip and fall attorneys recommend booking a free case consultation to discuss your right to name certain parties accountable for the medical expenses and other costs associated with your recent accident. We can demystify the nature of accident liability and help you fight for the support you deserve.
What’s the Difference Between Invitees, Licensees, and Trespassers?
Your right to pursue a premises liability claim will hinge on the role you played on someone else’s property. As the injured party, you can argue that you were:
- An invitee, or a guest explicitly invited onto someone else’s property. Invitees can include consumers as well as private guests.
- A licensee, or someone employed to enter someone else’s property. Some of the most common licensees who find themselves involved in slip and fall accidents can include electricians, plumbers, contract construction crews, and other repair specialists.
Trespassers, or people on another person’s land without their permission, do not benefit from a landowner’s duty of care and may not file personal injury claims after a serious accident.
Trespassers only have the right to legal action if they fall under the protection of Washington State’s attractive nuisance doctrine.
Seattle Slip And Fall Lawyer Near Me (800) 708-6000
When Should You Contact an Experienced Slip and Fall Lawyer in Seattle?
We recommend that you book a free case consultation with a slip and fall attorney in Seattle sooner rather than later after an accident.
Unfortunately, insurance companies and insurance claims adjusters will want to start throwing your right to compensation into question immediately.
The faster you can get an attorney to verify that you suffered from an accident due to unsafe conditions, the faster you can argue for the settlement you need to pay your bills.
What’s Important About Washington’s Personal Injury Statute of Limitations?
Wash. Rev. Code § 4.16.080(2) allows you to take up to three years to file a claim against the party responsible for your slip and fall accident.
You must file your claim before the third anniversary of your accident expires, or else you may lose your right to take legal action against a negligent party.
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Can a Personal Injury Attorney Help You Fight for Fair Compensation Based on Your Slip and Fall Losses?
Our slip and fall lawyers in Seattle, WA, take pride in holding at-fault parties financially accountable for the economic and non-economic losses you endured due to their negligence.
When filing your claim, we can account for the value of losses like the following:
- Medical bills, including treatments for traumatic brain injuries, spinal injuries, neck injuries, and other long-lasting conditions
- Emergency medical care, including ambulance fees
- Lost wages or your inability to maintain your previous income
- Property damage and essential repairs and/or rentals
- Reduced quality of life
- Emotional distress
- Pain and suffering
You can count on our team to provide you with an individualized assessment of your case’s value before we finalize your paperwork. We take pride in helping clients like you maximize the damages you take away from a slip and fall case.
For a free legal consultation with a slip and fall lawyer serving Seattle, call
(800) 708-6000
You Can Book a Free Case Consultation With Phillips Law Firm Right Now
Are you struggling to make an insurance company take your recent premises liability losses seriously? You don’t have to resign yourself to the severe injuries that come with a slip and fall accident.
If a property owner’s negligence contributed to your losses, you have the right to connect with an experienced lawyer to discuss your right to legal recourse.
Our slip and fall attorneys in Seattle, WA, offer free case consultations to anyone interested in pursuing a personal injury lawsuit following a serious slip and fall.
Let’s work together to hold a liable party accountable for the losses you sustained while under their care.
Real People. Real Justice. (800) 708-6000