Long Beach Slip and Fall Lawyers
Long Beach residents suffer their share of accidents. What are known as slip and fall accidents are consistently the leading cause of Long Beach area injury-producing incidents. They account for more than 1 million injuries each year in the United States. If you have been involved in a slip and fall accident, and have been severely injured, it might be time to consider hiring a slip and fall injury attorney.
Ask yourself, why are there so many falls? Actually, this is not simple at all. There is quite a complexity in same-surface slip and fall accidents. The assumption usually tends to be that people are not paying attention. They fall because the floor is slick, or because they are clumsy. They fall due to being careless, or because they step on some foreign object. These accidents lead to investigations that are one-dimensional and to repeated incidents at the same location.
To determine responsibility for an accident, there are many possible causes. People fall for numerous reasons. Reasons include: interaction of the walking surface with shoes; the physical environment, area distractions; and the physical and mental limitations of the victim. Falls are consistently the leading cause of injury-producing accidents.
Long Beach slip and fall cases fall under Long Beach premises liability law. There are generally four different types of personal injury slip and fall accidents:
- The person may lose footing, slip on the walking surface and fall, a characteristic “Slip and Fall”
- The person may stagger over an obstacle on the walkway or surface and fall, referred to as a “Stump and Fall”
- The individual may lose his/her sense of balance and fall due to a hole in the walkway or surface, or some type of unexpected defect, called a “Step and Fall”
- An individual may trip over a foreign object and fall, known as a “Trip and Fall”.
Regardless of the location in Long Beach or any other city, the goal of the injured party and his/her attorney, is to demonstrate that the owner of the property is liable for the accident. To establish liability, the injured party must demonstrate that the property owner did not exercise reasonable care, acted negligently or had knowledge of the unsafe condition that caused the accident.
In court, when an attorney is defending a slip and fall claim, a lawyer may deny that there was any negligence or claim that the injured party is actually the one at fault because if he/she had shown reasonable care for his/her safety, the hazard would have been seen and avoided.
If a victim has been previously injured, is disabled in some other way, or is elderly, there is a legal issue that might well assume a physical infirmity had caused the accident. But assumptions can prevent seeing the actual cause. There is actually no "correct" way to stand or walk. What we view as correct posture and movement is often a matter of opinion or pleasing esthetics. Handicapped people sometimes need to use a high level of concentration in the walking process.
Investigators of falls in Long Beach and other cities should understand the principles of human movement and have a working knowledge of floor materials, cleaning methods, and lighting.
When reconstructing a slip-and-fall accident, avoid coming to any conclusion too quickly. The victim should be extensively interviewed, and the verbal report used to focus the investigation. The slip-resistance of the floor should be measured, and accurate measurements of the light intensity and contrast should be made.
Long Beach building codes and various industry standards should be studied. Although slip and fall situations are seemingly the simplest of all accidents, they are not.
If you have been injured in a slip and fall accident, it's important to enlist the services of an accomplished, expert slip and fall injury attorney at Bisnar Chase Personal Injury Attorneys. Call us at 949-203-3814 or contact us for a free consultation.