Personal Injury and Premises Liability

Aug 30, 2024 - Personal Injury by Cross & Smith

Premises liability is a type of law that arises out of personal injury claims arising from accidents and injuries occurring on another’s property. If you’ve had an accident from a slip and fall in a hardware store, from tripping over an obstruction in the stadium bathroom, or from falling down the post office stairs due to broken stones, you may have a premises liability case. 

In Alabama, the law clearly states that people who control or own property have a duty of care to certain people who enter their property.

• Invitees, which include visitors, guests, business customers, and others on the premises for the owner’s or occupier’s financial or commercial benefit, are owed the highest duty of care. This means that the property owner must maintain the property in a safe manner and provide warnings of potentially hazardous conditions. If you are a patron of a sporting event or a customer in a department store, you are considered to be an invitee.  
• Licensees are those people who are on the property of another for social purposes. Often, this includes friends and families. Owners are responsible for correcting and warning against dangerous conditions and hazardous situations they actually know about.
• Trespassers are those who are on the property uninvited and without permission.  Owners and occupiers owe the least duty of care to a trespasser. Property owners are not responsible for keeping their property safe for trespassers. The only duty owed to trespassers is to refrain from engaging in intentional or reckless conduct that causes injuries and to warn the trespasser if you have actual knowledge they are in peril or danger. Note, however, that if a property owner has reasonable knowledge that children trespass onto the property, owners should post warnings of unsafe conditions and take reasonable steps to prevent the children from being exposed to such dangers.

Common premises liability claims can include slips, trips and falls on wet floors, bunched carpeting, or uneven pavement; broken handrails and stairs; products falling off of retail shelving; animal and dog bites; swimming pool accidents and other similar accidents. 

In order to prevail in your premises liability case, you will need to prove:

• The premises owner (or operator) had a duty to you
• The owner breached that duty
• The breach was the result of your injury
• You suffered compensable damages

Property Owner Defenses

A defense that a property owner typically asserts is that the hazard that caused your injury was open and obvious, and therefore, you should have been able to avoid the accident or injury. Because Alabama puts an equal onus on individuals to pay attention and avoid dangerous conditions, it is critical in a premises liability case to develop evidence that can overcome this defense.

Another problem from a plaintiff’s perspective is that if your claim involves premises liability because of the owner’s failure to provide adequate property security, you will need to establish that there is a pattern of fights, assaults, rapes and similar situations on the property in question. 

A property owner may also assert that you engaged in negligent behavior. Simply being injured on another’s property does not necessarily imply negligence. Alabama is one of the only five states that is a pure contributory negligence state. That means that if you are even one percent negligent, your claim will be defeated.

Here’s an example to help you better understand the complexities of premises liability cases, all of which are highly fact-specific:

Let’s say you’re at an Iron Bowl game, watching the storied Alabama-Auburn rivalry. You get so excited by the Auburn field goal that you rush down the ramp to grab a beer while excitedly texting your friend. You slip on a small puddle of liquid and fall and break your wrist. Is your injury the result of the negligence of the stadium owner or operator? 

The first question will be whether you, as a football fan who had paid for a ticket, were owed a duty of care. The answer here would be that you are an invitee, and under Alabama law, you are owed the duty of a safe premises, and hazards must be disclosed to you. 

The next question will likely be whether the puddle of liquid was a hazard that you should have been warned about. The answer here is “it depends.” Was the puddle of liquid a spill from a soda can that occurred only minutes earlier? Or was it from a roof leak that happens every time it rains, and the owner knew or should have known that this hazard would occur during today’s rain shower. 

A third question will be whether you were negligent in texting while rushing to get to the concession and, if you had been paying attention, you might have seen and avoided the puddle.  

Damages

If you prevail on your claim, you may be entitled to recover several types of personal injury damages. These include:

• Economic damages include the out-of-pocket costs you incur from your accident and injury. These will be medical costs, rehabilitation costs, the costs of pharmaceuticals, and similar types of costs. Economic damages also include any lost wages that you may have incurred due to missing work for hospital stays, rehab, or other reasons legitimately related to your accident. 
• Non-economic damages are harder to quantify and include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of companionship and similar damages.  
• In some particularly egregious cases, your Tuscaloosa personal injury attorney may decide to go after punitive damages. However, there is a cap on punitive damages. Under Alabama law, they may not exceed three times the amount a jury awards for compensatory damages, or $1.5 million, whichever is greater. However, if the defendant knowingly committed fraud or intentionally hid or destroyed evidence, the cap is no longer applicable.

Contact a Tuscaloosa Personal Injury Attorney Today

Our personal injury lawyers have many years of experience guiding their clients to successful results in a wide range of personal injury matters. In addition to our vast experience, we care about our clients on a personal level, and their testimonials bear this out. If you’ve been injured on the property of another party, contact us today for a free consultation.