Miami Slip and Fall Attorneys Dell & Schaefer Settle Case for $35,000

Business Owner Can Still Be Liable when Substance Left by a Patron Causes an Injury

Oftentimes, when you slip and fall on a foreign substance in a business establishment, it turns out that the foreign substance was left there by a patron of the business. After all, business establishments are typically frequented by large numbers of people. These people can be reckless and can leave behind dangerous conditions in the store. If you are injured by one of these dangerous conditions, you may think that your only recourse is to sue the business patron that created the condition. You may think that you can’t pursue a case against the business establishment because the business didn’t itself cause the condition to exist.

This is not always true. Businesses always have the responsibility to keep their properties safe for their customers. If there is a dangerous condition on business property, the business has the responsibility of fixing that condition – even if it was originally created by a patron of the business. That is, if a dangerous condition is created by a costumer of a business establishment, the business cannot simply turn a blind eye to the condition and allow other costumers to get injured. If it does this, the business will be responsible for those consequent injuries.

North Miami Slip and Fall Results in Neck and Back Injuries

Our client was a 50-year-old mother of two young boys. At the time of her accident, she was visiting at a friend’s apartment building. At the specific time of her fall, she was walking through the laundry room of the apartment building in order to get to the friend’s apartment.

At some point while our client walked through the laundry room, her foot encountered a puddle of water located on the floor of the laundry room. Unfortunately, our client’s foot slipped out from under her. Our client crashed to the ground and badly injured her neck and back.

While our client was lying on the ground in pain, another resident of the apartment building entered the laundry room. The resident asked our client what had happened. Our client told the resident that she had slipped on a puddle of water lying next to one of the washing machines. The resident told our client that she had been doing her laundry minutes before and that she had probably created the puddle with her dripping clothes.

Thereafter, the resident left the scene. Our client had been in too much pain to ask the resident for her name or contact information.

Client Visits Hospital, Follows Up with Surgeon

Following the accident, our client was taken by her friend to a nearby hospital. Some MRI’s were taken of our client’s neck and back, she was given some medications and discharged from the hospital that night. Our client was told to follow up with an orthopedic surgeon.

Within the next couple of weeks, our client did just that. She visited the office of a surgeon in the area. The Doctor looked at the MRI’s that had been taken of our client’s spine and determined that our client had sustained herniated discs in both her neck and back. The surgeon determined that our client would require epidural steroid injections into her spine.

Within weeks, our client underwent these injections. The needles were placed into our client’s spine, and an injection was administered. This clearly was not easy for our client.

North Miami Slip & Fall Lawyers Dell and Schaefer Settle Case for $35,000

Initially, it seemed that a lawsuit would be problematic. After all, our client had not gotten the name of the resident who had left the puddle, so bringing a case against that person seemed impossible. Also, because it was simply a resident (and not employees of the apartment complex) who had created the puddle, it seemed pointless to sue the apartment complex itself.

Nevertheless, our client wisely decided to contact the North Miami Slip & Fall Attorneys at Dell and Schaefer. We told our client that she could still pursue a case against the building owners. Even though the puddle was created by a resident of the building, we reasoned, she could sue the building owners because they too had a duty to keep the property safe. If we could prove that the puddle had been there long enough before the fall that the employees of the apartment complex should have known about it, a personal injury case against the building owners could be viable.

Thankfully, our client decided to hire the North Miami Slip and Fall Law Firm Dell & Schaefer. We argued to the defense attorneys that there were certain characteristics of the puddle that indicated it had been there awhile. For example, the puddle was said to have looked like it had been walked through before. That indicated that it had been on the floor for some time. If it hadn’t been there for awhile, it couldn’t have been walked through.

We also pointed out that our client was a mother of two minor children. Our client’s children were actually amateur boxers. Before her accident, our client would bring her children to their boxing tournaments around Florida and around the country. After the accident, her injuries made it very hard for our client to travel with her children. This limitation severely decreased the amount of enjoyment our client got from traveling with her children. Her close relationships with her children were also negatively affected.

Arguing these things allowed us to settle our client’s case for $35,000. Our client was extremely happy with the result. Initially, it had seemed as if a lawsuit was impossible since the puddle our client had slipped on had been left there by a resident of the apartment building (as opposed to employees of the building). Now, the case had been settled for $35,000 – money that would go a long way towards compensating our client for her injuries.

If you slip and fall on a foreign substance left on the floor of a business establishment by a business patron, don’t worry that you may not be able to bring a case. Call the North Miami Slip and Fall Attorneys at Dell & Schaefer and we will get you compensated for your injuries.

You can see more of our Florida Slip and Fall resolved cases on this page.