Common Causes of Denver Slip and Fall Accidents
A slip and fall accident is defined as a premises liability case where the landowner has acted in a way that is unreasonable or failed to take reasonable steps to prevent a person from getting injured on their premises. Common causes of Denver slip and fall accidents include icy sidewalks and water on the floor. If you have been injured in a slip and fall accident, consult an experienced slip and fall lawyer that could help you establish liability in your slip and fall case.
Common Slip and Fall Accident Scenarios
Some common causes of Denver slip and fall accidents are icy sidewalks or icy parking lots where either snow has accumulated and not been removed as it should or it has been removed in kind of a haphazard way and there is still accumulation or after it snows and there is snowmelt and they do not apply any kind of ice melt to the sidewalk and so ice accumulated on the sidewalk. Those are common for outdoor ones. Indoor slip and fall accidents, the most common are some type of water or substance that has been leaked on the floor of a store and someone – when an employee of the store does not notice it or does notice it and does not remediate the problem there.
Typical Injuries in a Slip and Fall Case
A lot of the common injuries in slip and fall cases are injuries to the lower extremities, and tailbone and lower back injuries as well. This is because when a person generally slips and falls, it is a very quick movement and sometimes the person does not have the ability to get their hands out and catch themselves so they are landing on their tailbone or their lower back.
There are a lot of lower back injuries, mainly disc protrusions or extrusions and spinal cord injuries. There are also breaks of the femur, broken ankles, broken legs. Those are a lot of the common ones seen, and then, if the plaintiff or claimant is able to get their hands out in front of them, sometimes there are shoulder injuries just from the impact of their hand and shoulder catching.
What Makes Slip and Fall Cases Unique?
The most unique thing about the slip and fall cases is that liability is always more hotly contested in a slip and fall case. When there are motor vehicle cases, liability can be figured out based on the rules of the road or if someone was issued a citation. In a slip and fall case, there are always defenses such as the plaintiff was walking down this aisle for 100 feet before they got to where they slipped at, they should have been able to see water on the floor.
The property owner might also put forth the defense that there was not enough time to notice a spill, clean it up, and take preventative measures to ensure that no one got hurt. There are always more issues that a person has to fight in a slip and fall case than, say, a motor vehicle case. A skilled slip and fall lawyer should be familiar with the potential defenses that the defense might put forth, and could work to disprove those arguments. Contact an attorney who could also use their knowledge of common causes of Denver slip and fall accidents to establish liability and develop a strong claim for the victim.
