Home Depot Slip and Fall Injury Claims in Florida
Many people in Florida enjoy visiting Home Depot stores when they need to do some home improvement or have an indoor or outdoor project that they are working on. There are hundreds of Home Depot Stores in South Florida and while each store is full of useful and necessary products, the stores can sometimes pose a risk to shoppers in the form of slip and fall accidents. Home Depot stores are usually very big as the average size of a home depot store is around 110,000 square feet. With so many aisles lined with products, it can be difficult for store employees to keep up with any and all spills that may occur. If you or someone you love sustained an injury after a fall at a Home Depot store in Florida, you may be wondering what you can do next and if you are entitled to obtain damages. In this blog post, we will give you a basic understanding of what to expect.
Causes of Slip and Fall Accidents at Home Depot
Every year, millions of Americans sustain injuries in a slip and fall or trip and fall. Given the sheer size of most Home Depot retail stores, it is no surprise that there are many potentially hazardous conditions that can present themselves at any time having the potential to cause serious injuries to patrons. As a shopper you have a duty to use reasonable care when walking after seeing a dangerous condition on the floor but when it pertains to slip and fall accidents, there are situations in which the negligence of a property owner or their employees create events that are beyond our control and cause us to sustain injuries. Most slip and fall injuries at Home Depot stores occur when one or more of the following situations occur: an employee cause a spill or leaves product on the sales floor without putting it away or placing it back on the shelves, an employee mops the floors but leaves some portions of the floor wet or slick, a customer spills paint or some other type of liquid substance and doesn’t clean it up or alert an employee, to name a few. In each of these cases, the owner of the Home Depot would have a responsibility to remove these hazards or conditions before they cause a patron to fall and suffer injuries. If you or someone you know has fallen and suffered injuries at a Home Depot store in South Florida, a slip and fall attorney at Suarez & Montero can help in getting you the compensation you deserve.
How to Determine Liability in a Slip and Fall at Home Depot
Generally, to establish a prima facie case of negligence, the plaintiff must establish: (1) the defendant owed a duty to the plaintiff; (2) the defendant breached the duty; (3) the breach was the actual and proximate cause of the plaintiff’s injuries; and (4) as a result the plaintiff suffered damages. A duty is the obligation to protect another against unreasonable risk of injury. A duty is owed to all foreseeable plaintiffs. Generally, possessors of land owe a duty only to those within the boundaries of their land. Such duties include: (1) conduct by the landowner that creates risk; (2) artificial conditions on the land; and (3) natural conditions on the land. The nature of a duty owed by an owner of land to those on his premises depends on the legal status of the plaintiff as: (1) trespassers, (2) licensees, or (3) invitees. An invitee is one who enters the land of another in relation to the landowner’s business or as a member of the public who enters the landowner’s land for a purpose for which the land is held open to the public. A public invitee is someone invited to enter or remain on the land for the purpose for which the land is held open to the public. A business visitor is someone invite to enter or remain on the land for a purpose connected to business dealings with the land possessor. A landowner owes an invitee a duty of reasonable care, including the duty to make reasonable inspections to discover, warn and or make safe concealed, unreasonable dangerous conditions (artificial & natural) that pose a serious risk of bodily harm or death. If an invitee extends the scope of the invitation, he takes the status of a trespasser. A business owner has a duty of reasonable care to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition for business invitees including reasonable efforts to keep the premises free from transitory objects or substances that might foreseeably give rise to loss, injury or damage and warn the invitee of any such object or substance. The plaintiff must show that but for the defendant’s breach (actual cause) the plaintiff would not have been injured, and the defendant’s actions were the proximate (or legal) cause of the injuries, and that such injuries were a foreseeable consequence of the defendant’s actions.
A Miami Slip and Fall Injury Lawyer Can Help
There are many types of accidents that can result in injury but some of the most prevalent types of personal injury cases in South Florida arise from slip and fall accidents. Slip and fall accidents can result in personal injuries that range from treatable soft tissue injuries, to more critical injuries such as fractures, broken bones, or amputated limbs. Additionally, slip and fall accidents can lead to spinal cord injuries or traumatic brain injuries when the injured victim falls on their head or back. While slip and falls are a haphazard event that can occur at any moment, the source of almost all slip and fall injuries are the negligent actions or inactions of another individual or entity. The outcomes from this type of negligence can make a lasting impact on injured victims and their families. Whatever the circumstances surrounding your Slip and Fall injury claim, the team at Suarez & Montero has the experience necessary to ask the right questions and take the necessary actions to ensure that you receive the compensation you deserve for the pain and inconvenience of sustaining an injury in a slip and fall.
We are available around the clock and we serve clients throughout all of South Florida in the following areas:
Miami-Dade: Aventura, Coral Gables, Doral, Fontainebleau, Hialeah, Homestead, Kendall, Miami, Miami Beach, Miami Lakes, North Miami, Tamiami, and Westchester.
Broward: Fort Lauderdale, Hallandale Beach, Hollywood, Pembroke Pines, and Weston; and Palm Beach County including Boca Raton, Lake Worth, and West Palm Beach.
