Slip And Fall Attorney in Baltimore

To prove another party committed at least one act of negligence, the slip and fall lawyer assigned to your case by Morgan and Morgan must first determine the cause of your injuries. Physical evidence combined with witness statements should provide your attorney with enough information to determine what caused you to slip and fall. 

Three factors cause a vast majority of slip and fall incidents.

Slick Floor or Ground

As by far the most common cause of slip and fall incidents, a slick surface can develop inside a grocery store or outdoors in the form of a patch of ice. For slick indoor surfaces, businesses have a duty of care to prevent a slip and fall by first placing a Wet Floor sign over a safety hazard, and then taking steps to remove the slick surface. Most municipalities require both businesses and homeowners to shovel ice and snow within a certain period, which typically ranges between 24 and 48 hours.

When a worker sees or is told about a slick surface, the worker must make removing the slick surface a priority to ensure the safety of customers and visitors.

Electrical Cord

Not all slip and fall incidents are technically slipping on a slick surface. A victim also can trip and fall over an object, and one of the most common objects that cause trips and falls are electrical cords. Businesses use extension cords for many reasons, from providing power to a cooler holding time-sensitive food products to allowing a business to gain access to a secondary power source. Trips and falls can produce injuries that are as serious as slip and fall incidents. Tripping over an object can twist one or both legs enough to produce considerable damage to knee ligaments. 

Although most slip and fall incidents end up with victims landing seat first on the floor and ground, trip and fall incidents frequently force a victim forward, which makes the head highly vulnerable to sustaining a severe injury.

Loose Flooring

Detecting the presence of an electrical cord can help you avoid a trip and fall, but it is difficult to detect loose flooring, especially tiles that have not moved, but have become dislodged from their proper positions. Torn carpeting represents another type of loose flooring that can cause a trip and fall incident. A bunched-up Welcome mat or a large mat used by customers to wipe their shoes dry also can cause trip and fall incidents. A business assumes responsibility for ensuring the replacement of damaged flooring before it hurts a customer or visitor.

One quick reminder for businesses: Inadequate training is the primary reason why slip and fall incidents happen. The National Institute of Occupational Safety (NIOS) offers access to an educational guide to teach employees how to prevent slip and fall incidents.

A slip and fall incident can happen just about anywhere, including on private property. If you slipped and fell at someone’s home, a premises liability attorney can help you determine whether the property owner should assume legal liability for causing your injuries. With more than 30 years of experience handling slip and fall cases, our slip and fall lawyers have come up with the three most common public venues where victims slip and fall.

Convenience Stores

Convenience stores meet the factors that define the following formula: High foot traffic plus busy employees equals slip and fall accidents. Convenience stores experience high volumes of customers throughout the day, but especially in the morning when commuters race to reach their destinations on time. The result of the high volume of customers includes spills that come from coffee cups, as well as from the beverages pulled from glass-encased refrigeration units. You might see multiple Wet Floor signs at the same time when you visit a convenience store at the height of rush hour.

Shopping Malls

Shopping malls have four prime areas where a slip and fall incident can occur: Restrooms, food courts, inside a business, and the interior of a mall. Maintenance workers do not have enough time in a day to wipe dry every slick surface. However, that does not mean management is not negligent for causing a visitor to slip and fall on a hard surface. Many slick surfaces never get reported, which should exonerate maintenance workers, but it does not. The bottom line is shopping mall management companies are responsible for ensuring customer safety.

Sports Venues

If you are looking for public access venues, where large crowds congregate within a short period, the venues you are looking for in Baltimore are M&T Bank Stadium and Oriole Park at Camden Yards. The home of the Baltimore Orioles holds up to 45,000 fans, while the home of the Baltimore Ravens has a fan capacity near 72,000. Both sports venues present several opportunities for fans to slip and fall, from the usual suspects like restrooms and public access areas to the numerous restaurants and concession stands that satisfy food and beverage demand.

To help your slip and fall lawyer build the strongest case possible, you should follow a series of steps after sustaining one or more injuries.

Seek Immediate Medical Care

The first step on the road to recovering from financial losses after a slip and fall is to seek immediate medical care. Many slip and fall incidents result in one or more serious injuries that require emergency care. Examples of serious or even life-threatening injuries include head trauma and spinal cord damage. Getting prompt medical care shows that you sustained at least one significant injury. If you put off getting treatment for an injury after a slip and fall incident, the other party’s attorney might claim you did not sustain a serious enough injury to warrant compensation.

To get an insurance claim approved, as well as win a favorable legal judgment, your slip and fall lawyer must submit copies of medical bills and records.

Notify Management

If you slip and fall at a busy venue, you should get the attention of an employee who in turn informs a manager about what just transpired. Notifying a member of the management team sets the wheels in motion for the completion and submission of an incident report. Your slip and fall lawyer examines the incident report to determine whether the venue should assume legal liability for causing you to slip and fall. An incident report also contains the names and contact information of witnesses.

Contact a Slip and Fall Lawyer

Before you contact an insurance company, you should first meet with a slip and fall lawyer to determine how to proceed with your case. Perhaps you need to collect more convincing physical evidence and/or reach out to more witnesses to build a stronger claim. Insurance companies love to deal with policyholders that do not retain legal representation. If you file a valid claim without the legal support of a slip and fall lawyer, the insurance company processing the claim might deny it or approve it for a value that is well below what you deserve.

Maryland law grants plaintiffs filing personal injury lawsuits three years to take legal action. Although three years is plenty of time to file a civil lawsuit that seeks monetary damages, you should act with a sense of urgency for two reasons. First, your slip and fall lawyer needs to interview witnesses right after the personal injury incident to receive the most accurate version of events. Witness accounts tend to lose credibility the longer they are given after a slip and fall incident. Second, you should act quickly because of the mounting medical bills sent by healthcare providers. If you wait too long to file an insurance claim and/or a personal injury lawsuit, you might fall into a deep financial hole.

Take action today by scheduling a free case evaluation with a slip and fall lawyer from Morgan and Morgan.