As snow descends on Ohio residents and continues to accumulate while people go about completing their daily tasks, including rushing to complete their holiday shopping, they may not be aware of the risks that could befall them if the proprietors of businesses have not ensured their safety. Slips and falls are common accidents that take place in winter.
When an individual slips and falls on another’s property and suffers a personal injury, they may be able to file a premises liability lawsuit against the property owner. Slip and falls can take place both inside the premises, due to poor lighting and cracked stairways, or outside, because of rain and snow. Although it is the responsibility of the owner or maintainer of property to ensure their premises are kept safe from risks and dangers, there are certain legal requirements that must be met to establish a premises liability case.
To prove a case, it must be established that the accident was caused by a dangerous condition and that the person maintaining or owning the property knew of the condition. This condition must be such that it presented an unreasonable risk to people and one that people would not have known about or anticipated under the circumstances. Therefore, the owner and/or possessor would have created the condition, or known that the condition exists and failed to correct it, or the condition should have existed for so long that the owner and/or possessor should have known about it and fixed it before the incident took place.
Personal injuries caused by someone else’s negligence are frustrating because they could have been avoided had the relevant parties acted responsibly. Holding them accountable through a personal injury lawsuit may be one way to get compensation to cover injuries suffered and to get an owner and/or possessor to correct the hazardous condition.