Get the Compensation You Deserve After a Trip and Fall Injury

According to the National Floor Safety Institute (NFSI), falls result in more than eight million hospital emergency room visits each year, which represents the leading cause of emergency room visits in the United States. Trips and falls account for a substantial percentage of hospital emergency room visits. Serious injuries that result from tripping and falling, which include broken ribs, brain trauma, and fractured arms, require months, if not years, of intensive treatments and rehabilitation sessions for a victim to recover enough to resume a career.

As with slip and fall injuries, trip and fall injuries take place mostly at public access venues like restaurants, shopping malls, and grocery stores. However, the most common reasons for trip and fall incidents differ from the most common reasons that cause victims to slip and fall. Public access venues owe visitors a duty of care to protect them from sustaining the injuries that are associated with trip and fall incidents. If a public access venue failed to take the preventive steps required to protect you from harm, you might have a strong enough case to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

Filing a personal injury lawsuit after a trip and fall incident is just one of the many reasons why you should contact an experienced personal injury lawyer who specializes in handling trip and fall cases. Trip and fall injury attorneys conduct detailed investigations that uncover physical evidence that includes security camera footage and photographs taken of the accident scene. Hiring a personal injury lawyer also helps you file a persuasive insurance claim to recover the financial losses caused by a trip and fall incident.

For more than 35 years, the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan have helped clients recover from the financial losses generated by trip and fall incidents. We have recovered more than $20 billion in compensation for clients involved in personal injury cases since we opened our first office in 1988. When you hire one of the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan, you can count on working with a litigator who responds promptly to all forms of communication, as well as represents you during every step of the insurance claim and personal injury lawsuit filing process.

Learn how to receive the compensation that you deserve by scheduling a free case evaluation with one of the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan.

What Are the Most Common Causes of Trip and Fall Incidents?

The first step for proving another party committed one or more acts of negligence is for your personal injury lawyer to determine the cause of your injuries. Our more than three decades of handling trip and fall cases have helped our personal injury attorneys come up with a short list of the most common causes of trip and fall incidents.

Electrical Cords

Businesses use electrical cords for a wide variety of reasons. From reaching a distant electrical outlet to generating more power for a refrigeration unit, businesses such as restaurants and convenience stores often place electrical cords in the high-traffic areas of their stores. As with a slick floor surface, businesses owe customers and visitors a duty of care to warn them about the presence of an electrical cord. Failing to place a safety sign next to an electrical cord amounts to committing an act of negligence, which a trip and fall victim can use as physical evidence when filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages.

Loose Flooring

Loose flooring includes dislocated tiles, displaced carpeting, and even a bunched-up welcome mat at the front of a store. Public access venues such as airports and stadiums owe visitors a duty of care to prevent the development of loose flooring, which can produce a trip and fall that causes a victim to fall hard to the floor without using one or both arms to brace for impact. Loose tiles are an especially dangerous safety hazard because the tiles possess sharp edges. The most effective way to prove negligence when it comes to loose flooring is to recover the footage captured by a store security camera.

Clutter

Have you ever walked into a convenience or grocery store right after the store received a truckload of products? Boxes and containers lie in the high-traffic areas of the store, which poses a trip and fall safety hazard. Businesses that receive product deliveries during business hours owe customers and visitors a duty of care to stock the recently arrived products as quickly as possible. Moreover, store management must take steps to prevent customers and visitors from tripping and falling over the boxes and containers lining the store aisles.

Inadequate Lighting

Inadequate lighting can cause a trip and fall incident even if there is no other contributing factor, such as loose flooring. Lack of illumination is a particularly dangerous safety hazard outdoors at night for customers and visitors. Inferior lighting can prevent a customer or visitor from noticing a slick spot on the ground between a parking lot and the entrance of a public access venue. Businesses and public access venues owe customers and visitors a duty of care to ensure sufficient lighting both indoors and outdoors.

What Should I Do if I Trip and Fall at a Public Access Venue?

Tripping and falling is a type of personal injury incident that we do not see coming. The suddenness of tripping and falling might leave you a bit dazed, which can cause a critical delay in your response to the personal injury incident. If you are a victim of a trip and fall incident, you must be proactive and enact the following steps right away to help you receive the compensation that you deserve.

Seek Medical Care

Sustaining one or more serious injuries requires an immediate visit to the nearest hospital emergency room. Even if you can drive yourself to get medical care, you should do it right after a trip and fall incident. If you wait too long to receive treatment for your injuries, the insurance company processing your claim and/or the attorney representing the defendant might try to prove you did not sustain one or more serious injuries. Even if you feel healthy enough to remain at the public access venue where you tripped and fell, you should still seek medical care after reporting the personal injury incident.

Report the Trip and Fall Incident

The owner or a member of the management team at the business where you tripped and fell is required to submit a formal incident report describing the time and date when you sustained one or more injuries. The incident report also contains information that provides a detailed explanation of what caused you to trip and fall. You are responsible for reporting the trip and fall incident to ensure the owner or manager on duty completes an incident report and sends a copy of it to the appropriate insurance company, as well as to one of the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan. If you sustained serious injuries that require immediate medical care, an employee or a witness to the trip and fall incident should notify management.

Contact One of the Trip and Fall Injury Attorneys at Morgan and Morgan

After you receive treatment for your injuries, the next step involves getting the legal representation you need to file a persuasive insurance claim, as well as a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. A personal injury lawyer helps you gather physical evidence such as photos shot of the accident scene and the footage captured by a business security camera. If you do not retain a lawyer to help you file an insurance claim, the insurance company processing your claim might deny it or approve it for a value that is not close to the compensation that you deserve. One of the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan also ensures you file a civil lawsuit before the expiration of the statute of limitations.

How Much Time Do I Have to File a Personal Injury Lawsuit?

You have a limited amount of time to take legal action against the public access venue where you tripped and fell. Each state has established a deadline for filing a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages. Most states have set a deadline to take legal action between two and four years, although you might live in a state that has established a deadline as long as six years or as short as one year. The clock starts to tick for filing a personal injury lawsuit on the day of the incident. However, you might receive an extension if your trip and fall lawyer can show the court that you sustained one or more injuries that developed delayed symptoms.

Regardless of how much time you have to take legal action, you should act with a sense of urgency for two important reasons. First, unless your healthcare providers agree to place a medical lien on the compensation received from an insurance claim and/or a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damage, you are responsible for paying medical bills. With medical expenses often running into thousands of dollars, you might find yourself in a deep financial hole. Filing a personal injury lawsuit as quickly as possible after a trip and fall incident helps you retain financial solvency. Second, your personal injury lawyer needs to interview witnesses right after the trip and fall incident to ensure the utmost accuracy. Witness accounts tend to lose credibility the longer they are given after a personal injury incident.

If you fail to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages before the expiration of the statute of limitation, you can expect the court clerk to remove your lawsuit from the judicial docket.

Contact One of the Trip and Fall Injury Attorneys at Morgan and Morgan

Hiring a personal injury lawyer who specializes in handling trip and fall cases helps you receive several types of legal support. You receive help filing a convincing insurance claim, as well as advice on how to prepare for a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages if another party committed at least one act of negligence. Your attorney also interacts with the insurance adjuster processing your claim to ensure it receives the attention it deserves.

Take action today by scheduling a free case evaluation with one of the trip and fall injury attorneys at Morgan and Morgan.