Proving a Premises Liability Case

As a personal injury claimant, you are the one who has the burden of proof to show that the facts that you are alleging are true. Your end goal is to prove that someone else was negligent, thereby triggering their legal obligation to pay you for your injuries. Proving liability is not always an easy endeavor.

However, it can become less difficult for you when you enlist an experienced premises liability attorney to handle your case. A lawyer can gather the evidence you need and assemble your case to make for a more compelling claim. The experienced personal injury lawyers at Nix Patterson have a track record of getting results for our clients. Talk to our attorneys and learn how we can work for you.

Common Types of Premises Liability Cases

While every case is unique, there are several common categories of premises liability cases. Those can include:

• Slip-and-falls
• Swimming pool accidents
• Fires
• Negligent security
• Stairway accidents
• Supermarket accidents

There are many more instances of potential premises liability claims, though. Ultimately, you can file a lawsuit if you are harmed whenever you are on someone else’s property, and they’ve failed to uphold the duty of care that they owed you.

Although premises liability cases are diverse in nature, the same legal principles will apply any time you are filing a lawsuit. You must prove that the defendant was negligent, and you must fight for compensation that reflects your own specific injuries.

Proving Fault in Premises Liability Cases

Even though premises liability cases span a wide variety of fact patterns and types of accidents, the legal standard that is used is always the same. Before you can receive even an offer of financial compensation, you need to prove that someone was legally responsible for your injuries. The standard that you must meet in any premises liability case is negligence. Once you enter someone’s property, they take on a duty of care that they owe you. Negligence occurs when the property owner, or the person in control of the property, does something that a reasonable property owner would not have done under the circumstances.

You can establish negligence when you have evidence of what the owner did or did not do and can argue that they fell short of what was expected of them. Your premises liability attorney will investigate the accident and compile the evidence you need to demonstrate negligence.

Negligence of the Defendant

Being able to prove that the defendant was negligent is the prerequisite to being eligible for financial compensation. In a premises liability case, as in any personal injury claim, the four elements of the negligence test are as follows:

• Duty of care: The defendant owed you a duty of care, which they had assumed when they held their property open to you.
• Breach of the duty: The defendant breached the duty of Care by doing something that would be considered unreasonable under the circumstances, such as not removing debris from the floor within a reasonable amount of time after they knew or should have known about it.
• Injury: You suffered some type of injury to your person or emotions
• Causation: You would not have been injured had it not been for the careless actions of the defendant

The only way that you can prove negligence is when you have sufficient evidence that shows what the defendant did. Then, their actions would be compared to what a reasonable person would have done. You must show how they felt short of upholding their duty of care.

Your premises liability attorney would gather the evidence that you need to prove your case. They may speak with witnesses, or they may present pictures of the scene of the accident to show what the defendant did. If you file a premises liability lawsuit, your attorney would be able to gather additional evidence through the discovery process, such as security camera footage or the exact words of the defendant that they would obtain through a deposition.

Understanding Comparative Negligence

There may be times when the defendant in a case does not bear the entire blame for the accident. They may share the blame with you. In other cases, the insurance company may try to point a finger at you to cut the amount of money that they owe you or to avoid paying you at all.

Texas law allows you to recover compensation so long as you were less than 51% to blame for the accident. If you bear more than this percentage of fault, you will be barred from receiving any money at all. If you are partially to blame for the accident, your compensation would be reduced by the amount of your fault.

The comparative negligence system gives the insurance company an incentive to try to blame you whenever they can. For example, insurance companies like to blame the accident victim in a slip-and-fall case, claiming that they were either distracted or did not take the appropriate amount of care.

Your premises liability attorney may need to be every bit as much of a defense lawyer, parrying accusations that you were somehow to blame for the accident. If the insurance company persists in blaming you, and they are wrong, you may take your case to court, and a jury will decide the matter.

Ownership of the Premises Upon Which You Suffered Your Accident

The defendant often assumes the duty of care because they own the property to which you were invited. This fact alone is enough to create a legal relationship between you and the defendant, such that you would be entitled to compensation if they fail to uphold their duty of care.

There are some cases where you would not proceed directly against the actual owner of the property. For example, commercial property owners lease the premises to a store or business, which has day-to-day control of the property. The owner would not be involved in the circumstances that caused your accident. The person who was in control of the property and could have acted reasonably to keep you safe would be the one who is liable for your injuries.

A premises liability attorney would perform a complete investigation of the accident to determine who you may be able to sue. There may be times when you are able to sue both the owner and the person who was in control of the property, depending on the circumstances.

Direct Cause of Your Injuries

Causation is a key element of every personal injury case. Here, causation may mean the following:

• Cause in Fact: This is also known as the “but for” test. Here, you must show that your injuries would not have occurred but for the defendant’s conduct.
• Proximate Cause: Here, the question is whether your injuries would have been foreseeable to the defendant. If there is too long of a chain of causation, it could make things more attenuated and your case harder to prove.

To win your case, you would need to prove both types of causation. One way that the insurance company tries to break the chain of causation is by arguing that you were at fault for your injuries.

Economic and Non-Economic Damages

Before you file a premises liability claim, you must be mindful of the principles that guide the amount of compensation that you are able to receive. Your settlement check is not a one-size-fits-all proposition, and it is something that is entirely unique to you. The responsible party must pay you for the harm that they caused you and not what they did to the average person. Your premises liability attorney will review your case and give you a number for which you would seek compensation.

Your compensation would break down into the following two categories:

• Economic Damages: These damages compensate you for your actual financial losses, including money that you had to spend because of your injuries and funds that could not come into your pocket when you are not able to work as you did before the accident.
• Non-Economic Damages: This category of damages is far more subjective, and it is intended to compensate you for the various effects that go along with your physical injuries. These damages include pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, and scarring and disfigurement.

There is a wide range of outcomes as far as your premises liability damages are concerned. The best outcome for you is getting every dollar that you deserve and compensation. It is your premises liability attorney’s job to fight for you to get all the money you are due.

Statute of Limitations

You do not have an unlimited amount of time to file a claim or lawsuit against the defendant. Texas law imposes a strict time limit on you, and if you miss the deadline, you will lose the right to seek compensation entirely. In Texas, the statute of limitations is two years from the time that you were injured or learned that you were injured. There may be times when your injuries were not immediately apparent at the time of the accident, and the time clock would begin to run when you knew or should have known that you were injured.

The statute of limitations is a firm and unforgiving deadline. If you miss it by even a day, you will no longer have a legal right to compensation because it has expired. The best thing that you can do is to contact a premises liability attorney as soon as possible after your injury, so they can begin work on the legal process. Even though they may not be ready to file a claim immediately, they can begin to build your case and put you in a position to file a claim or lawsuit.

Contact a Texas Premises Liability Attorney Today

The attorneys at Nix Patterson will work tirelessly when you are seeking compensation for premises liability injuries. As soon as you hire us for your case, we roll up our sleeves and get to work.

The first step is to reach out to us online or call us today at 512-328-5333 to discuss your case during a free initial consultation with one of our lawyers. Not only is the initial consultation free, but you do not need to pay us anything from your own pocket under any circumstances.