Legal Rights and Responsibilities After a Slip and Fall Accident
November 17, 2024
People who don’t have a legal background often find it intimidating to understand the law. They see a labyrinth of laws that are almost impossible to navigate. In some ways, this is an accurate assessment. But the law doesn’t have to be scary after you have been injured in a slip and fall accident. Experienced personal injury lawyers from Wapner Newman can help you navigate the more complicated parts of the law. Between this and a basic understanding of your legal rights and responsibilities after a slip and fall accident, you can get the compensation you need to recover.
Legal Rights After a Slip and Fall Accident
You probably have more rights in a slip and fall accident than you realize. To begin with, you have the right to be safe from danger when you visit the property of another party. This is true when you are:
- A guest at someone’s home
- Shopping at a store
- Visiting a public location
- At work.
The owner or manager of the location is required to identify and correct any potential risks to people who enter the premises. If they fail to correct a danger or warn you of an uncorrected danger, you can file a premises liability lawsuit against them. The ability to file a lawsuit to get compensation for your injuries is the enforcement mechanism for your right to not be injured in a slip and fall accident on another party’s premises.
When the owner of a location fails to properly protect you from dangers at that location, they are negligent, and you can file a lawsuit against that party for any injuries you suffer in a slip and fall accident.
Right to Compensation After a Slip and Fall Accident
Your right to receive compensation after a slip and fall accident is broken up into two types of compensation — economic and non-economic.
Economic compensation (also known as economic damages) reimburses you for any losses or expenses you incurred due to your injury. Typically, this means you can get compensation for any medical bills resulting from the injury and any lost wages due to work missed because of the injury. Economic damages also include any other expenses related to your injury. It is easy to determine economic damages, because you can produce a receipt or other type of documentation for all economic damages.
Non-economic damages are a little more complicated. They represent compensation for the pain and suffering you endured from your injury. Unlike economic damages, there is no way to document these damages. You can’t place a definitive value on the pain you feel. Instead, your personal injury lawyer will typically calculate your pain and suffering as a multiplier of your total economic damages when presenting your case to a jury. However, the jury gets to make the final decision and can potentially award you with much higher or lower damages than your attorney believes is appropriate.
Finally, all damages are limited by the modified comparative negligence rule used in Pennsylvania law. This means that if you are 51% or more responsible for your injury, you are not eligible to get compensation from another party. However, if you are 50% or less responsible, you can get compensation, even though you are partially responsible for your injuries. You will receive reduced compensation, though; any compensation you are eligible to receive will be reduced by the percentage of responsibility you bear.
Were you seriously injured in a slip and fall accident? If that injury was the result of the negligence of another party, you are eligible to get compensation for the injury. Contact Wapner Newman at (215) 569-0900 to discuss your rights and responsibilities with experienced lawyers after a slip and fall accident.
Responsibilities After a Slip and Fall Accident
While you have fewer responsibilities than rights after a slip and fall accident, fulfilling your responsibilities will make it easier to enforce your rights.
Get Medical Attention
Your first responsibility is to get medical attention as quickly as possible. You may think your injuries are minor, but that assumption could be dangerous. Some slip and fall injuries are more serious than they seem. Additionally, some relatively minor injuries can worsen if not properly and promptly treated. By getting medical attention quickly, you protect your health.
Furthermore, getting medical attention also protects your finances. If you refuse or delay medical attention, the insurance company for the responsible party may use that decision to deny or devalue your claim. The insurance company can argue that your refusing medical attention contributed to the severity of your injury, thus making you partially responsible for those injuries. Therefore, when you promptly get medical attention, you are both protecting your health and helping your Wapner Newman personal injury attorney get you better compensation.
Gather Evidence at the Accident Scene
Another way you can help your Wapner Newman lawyer better represent your claim is by gathering evidence while still at the accident scene. Our personal injury lawyers will fight to protect your rights after a slip and fall accident, but even if you contact us immediately, we probably can’t send a representative to the accident scene at a moment’s notice. It makes our job much easier if you help us collect evidence. This means that you should document the accident scene and any injuries you suffered. You should also get the contact information of any possible witnesses and note whether any cameras might have recorded the accident.
Additionally, you should continue your documentation while receiving medical attention. Preserve copies of any medical records, including bills. Make sure all medical records are dated so you can prove that your injuries occurred during the accident rather than at some other time. Our attorneys will guide you through this by voice or text, even if we can’t be present. But we need you to fulfill this responsibility if we are to get you fair compensation for your injuries.
Contact Our Law Firm as Soon as Possible
Many people think they don’t need a lawyer to get compensation from the insurance company of a responsible party. If you are very lucky, that is true. However, if you aren’t represented by an attorney, the insurance company will usually try to take advantage of you. It might offer you what seems like fair compensation, only for you to find out weeks later that it was too little, and you can’t get any more after accepting the initial offer. Alternatively, the insurance company might try to get you to sign away your rights. Our experienced legal team will protect you from these tactics and start fighting for you the moment you contact us. You must contact us quickly, though. Delays only help the other party. According to Pennsylvania law, you only have two years to file a lawsuit, and in some cases, every day of those two years is critical.
Contact a Philadelphia Slip and Fall Lawyer Today
Understanding your legal responsibilities and rights after a slip and fall accident is only the first step to getting fair compensation for your injuries. The next step is contacting the right lawyer to protect those rights.
At Wapner Newman, our legal team will fight to get you the compensation you need to recover after suffering an injury in a fall. Want to know more? Contact our law firm at (215) 569-0900 to schedule a free consultation.