Were You Injured at a Tampa Area Business?
Serious injuries can occur at all kinds of Florida businesses. Grocery stores, restaurants, hotels and all other commercial entities must all look out for the safety of their patrons. If you have been injured at a Florida business, you have a legal options. You should contact an experienced Tampa premises liability attorney as soon as possible after sustaining any type of serious injury.
Florida Law: What is Premises Liability?
In Florida, personal injury claims can be brought against businesses using a legal theory known as premises liability. This is because all property owners have a legal duty to look out for the safety of invited guests. Business must protect their customers from any unreasonable safety risks. A premises liability claim can be brought against a business for a number of different reasons. Some common examples premises liability claims include injuries caused by:
- A slippery or damaged floor;
- A falling object;
- Poor security, leading to an attack by a third party; and
- Dog bites.
Ultimately, a business can be held liable for any injury on their premises that occurred as a result of their negligence.
How Do You Prove Negligence
At the most basic level, you can prove negligence by establishing that your injury was caused by the presence of an unreasonable risk on the property. Unfortunately, businesses and their insurance companies do not often willingly pay injury victims the full settlement that they deserve. The good news is that an attorney can help hold them accountable. In order to make a claim, an attorney will start by comprehensively examining the specific facts of the case. This starts by asking two important questions:
- Was the accident, and therefore the resulting injuries, a foreseeable event?
- Did the Florida business make sufficient efforts to mitigate the risk of an accident?
Ultimately, businesses will only be held liable for an injury if they could have reasonably anticipated that it was a possibility and yet still failed to do enough to try to prevent the accident from happening. For example, a slippery grocery store floor is a huge safety risk. A fall on a hard grocery store floor can cause very serious injuries. If a store employee mops the floor, and then fails to put up any signage warning customers about the slippery conditions, the store could be liable for any resulting slip and fall injuries. In that scenario, the store should have been well aware that an injury could have occurred. Slipping on a wet floor is clearly foreseeable. Beyond that, the store made no effort to attempt to reduce the risk of an accident. They put up no warning signs despite the fact that it was easily possible to do so. Therefore, in that hypothetical, the grocery store was negligent and should be held liable.
Contact Our Office Today
Customers at Florida businesses have the reasonable expectation that they will be kept safe. Businesses must keep their property free of unreasonable safety risks. When they fail to do so, innocent people can suffer life changing injuries. If you have been injured at a Florida business, you need legal protection. For assistance from an aggressive personal injury attorney, please call The Pawlowski//Mastrilli Law Group today at 813-242-4404.
