Liability Principles

No matter how a person ended up on your property, you may be liable for an injury. It doesn't matter if you invited someone onto your property (an invitee), someone comes onto your property with your permission for their own purposes (a licensee) or someone comes on without any permission (a trespasser). Owners are required to warn others of possible dangers, even trespassers, if it may be proven that you knew someone is likely to trespass on your property.

Premises Liability Laws in some states focus on the visitor's status on the property.
Licensees need to be warned of hidden dangerous areas, and the owner may not necessarily need to have these areas fixed. Trespassers may recover damages if they may prove the owner knew others would enter his or her property without permission. Even though proper warning signs need not to be placed in the case of trespassers, it is still wise to do so in case children wander onto your property. Children that are injured on your property are more likely to recover damages, even if they are trespassers. This fact increases the property owners duty to warn in the case of children.

The condition of the property and activities of the owners, visitors and licensees are given consideration in some states. Reasonable care must be given to any visitor or licensees, but not to trespassers. Owners must continually inspect property and repair or place warnings on any dangerous conditions. The injured party must show neglect to the standard of reasonable upkeep by the owner to prove a premises liability case and prove the owner had knowledge of the danger. The injured party must also show that they took reasonable care for their own safety. It is very difficult to prove owners knew of dangers and that injured parties took reasonable care to avoid the danger.

Personal Injury Cases

When someone slips on a foreign substance or due to a dangerous condition, and injures themselves when falling, they have a slip and fall Personal Injury case. Common causes of these are icy sidewalks, often in front of a business, or grocery store slips on various food items that have fallen on the floor. Owners of the property may or may not be liable for the damages due to these injuries. Even though they have a duty to maintain the property and exercise reasonable care to protect their consumers and other visitors, conditions of the property should be easily perceptible, as the injured parties have a responsibility to protect themselves against injuries.

The owners or possessors of the property may also avoid liability by showing that the danger had occurred without reasonable opportunity for the owner or possessor to clean up or fix the condition before the injuries occurred. This time frame may vary in each individual case, and it is the injured party that has to establish that the owner or possessor of the property had a reasonable period of time in which to find out about the danger and to place a warning about it or fix the problem.

DISCLAIMER: The information you obtain at our firm web site is not, nor is it intended to be, legal advice. It is recommended that you should consult an attorney for individual advice regarding your own situation.

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