Proving your case in a slip and fall accident comes down to four factors: duty, breach, causation and damages. These four terms are applicable to any tort case. A tort is a breach of a duty owed to another person, a duty to use a reasonable amount of care, or caution, so that others are not injured. While these terms have specific legal meanings, the concepts behind the terms are relatively simple. If a slip and fall victim can prove that a landowner owed them a duty, did not use sufficient caution (breached the duty) and that the breach caused some type of damage, a slip and fall case should be successful.
A landlord’s duty changes depending on what type of visitor is entering his land. There are three general categories of visitor, and each is owed a different duty. General visitors, such as friends or family or other non-business related guests, are licensees. A licensee has permission to be on a landowner’s property. A landowner’s duty to a licensee is very minimal—all he has to do is keep the property safe and warn the licensee of any known dangers, and refrain from purposefully creating a dangerous situation.
An individual entering land for the benefit of the landowner is an invitee or business invitee. Examples of invitees are contractors called out to the house, cable repair workers, meter readers, or customers at a garage sale. A landowner owes a somewhat stricter duty to an invitee than to a licensee. A landowner is obligated to take all reasonable steps to protect an invitee from harm resulting from a hazard or foreseeable hazard on his property. This includes warning an invitee of a dangerous condition, hidden or otherwise. For example, a landowner is obligated to fix a loose step to protect an invitee; in a licensee situation, a simple warning will suffice.
The final category of visitor is a trespasser. Generally, a landowner owes no duty to a trespasser because the trespasser does not have permission to be on the land. There are a few exceptions to this general rule, the most prominent involving children. Also, while there is no duty to warn of or remove hazards, an owner who deliberately creates a hazard that would potentially cause injury to a trespasser (i.e., a hidden trap) can be held responsible for a trespasser’s injuries.
After determining what category of visitor the injured party falls into, one must determine the applicable duty and begin to analyze whether that duty has been breached. Breach of duty, the second prong of the four-part analysis, is not always easy to determine. Many states have adopted the “open and obvious” doctrine, which states that if a hazard is easily identifiable or the injured party should have known about the hazard, there is no liability on the part of the landowner. Assuming the open and obvious doctrine is not an issue, some examples of breach of duty would be failure to clean a spill in a grocery store aisle, failure to warn an estate sale customer of a loose step, or failure to disarm an electric fence.
Once it is established that a duty was breached, an injured party must prove that the breach of duty was the actual cause of the injury. This last step encompasses the last two prongs—causation and damages. While there are different types of causation, a injured party need simply ask himself “would my injury have occurred but for the landowner’s breach of duty?”. If the answer is “yes,” then the injured party will have a difficult time proving causation. However, if the answer is “no,” the injured party has likely met all four requirements necessary to prove liability in a slip and fall matter.
With regard to damages, one only has to demonstrate that an injury of some type occurred. The injury can be physical or financial in nature. For example, someone who slips and falls on ice and breaks a hip clearly meets the damages requirement. However, someone who slips and falls on ice and gets up unharmed will have a difficult time proving his or her case. While a landowner in the second example may have breached a duty and caused someone to fall, no damage occurred.
Duty, breach, causation and damages—each and every slip and fall case boils down to those four issues. However, local and state laws vary and there are exceptions to nearly every legal rule. Even the duties owed a visitor can differ from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. There are no guarantees that meeting the four requirements will ensure victory in court. Consult with a local attorney for the best advice as to how to proceed.