Florida Premises Liability Attorneys
Property owners and managers in the State of Florida – and elsewhere across the nation – are held to certain safety standards that are known as their duty of care to customers, clients, and other visitors on their properties. When business or property owners don’t abide by this duty, people can be seriously injured in a variety of ways.
If you have been injured as a result of a property owner’s negligence, you have the right to hold them accountable for your injuries and losses. This is a complicated process, but the verdict-verified and courtroom-ready premises liability attorneys at Matthews Injury Law are ready to help.
Premises Liability Claim FAQs
Having the answers to frequently asked questions related to premises liability claims can help you better understand your rights and how we protect them.
What are the Elements of a Florida Premises Liability Claim?
The elements of successful Florida premises liability claims include:
- The property owner or manager owed customers, clients, and/or other invited guests a duty of care to maintain the property in a reasonably safe manner. Reasonable here means a standard that other reasonable property owners maintain in similar situations.
- The property owner or manager breached this duty of care by failing to reasonably maintain the property or to repair a dangerous condition that he or she knew about or reasonably should have known about.
- The property owner or manager’s failure to maintain the property in reasonably safe condition directly caused you to be injured.
- Your injuries caused you to suffer verifiable losses.
What Are the Most Common Types of Premises Liability Claims?
Every premises liability claim is utterly unique to the situation therein, but there are several types of premises liability claims that are most common:
- Slip and fall or trip and fall accidents in which the property owner or manager’s inadequate maintenance leads to dangerous slipping and/or tripping hazards
- Inadequate security (security negligence) in which the property owner or manager fails to maintain adequate security measures to prevent assault and other harm
- Inadequate barriers that the property owner or manager fails to erect to keep unattended children out of areas that are dangerous to them, such as swimming pools and hot tubs
Proving Duty of Care
A property owner or manager’s duty of care typically isn’t the same for every person who enters but is, instead, based on the reason the person in question is on the property. As such, people on the property are classified in one of the following categories:
- Invitees – Invitees are owed the most significant duty of care, and this category extends to those people who are customers or clients of the business (or who have some other legitimate business reason for being there).
- Licensees – Licensees are those people who enter someone’s property by virtue of an invitation to do so for a social purpose. A guest at a birthday party is a good example of a licensee.
- Trespassers – Trespassers are those people who enter a property without permission to do so, and they are afforded the lowest duty of care, which amounts to using reasonable care to refrain from causing them reckless or intentional injury.
Look to Our Results-Driven Tampa and Sarasota Florida Premises Liability Attorneys for the Help You Need
The Sarasota and Tampa premises liability attorneys at Matthews Injury Law understand the significance of your claim and are committed to applying the full force of their experience and skill in pursuit of the best possible results for you. To learn more, please don’t wait to contact us online or call us at 813-530-1000 or 941-877-5800 today.