Owners and landlords take on a responsibility when they invite people – such as tenants or customers – onto their property. Visitors have a right to expect that the property will be reasonably safe for their use and not full of hidden hazards. But property owners often don't do enough to keep their property safe.
One example of a hazard is a porch step that has rotted. A little girl running down the steps might fall through and get seriously hurt. In another scenario, a customer at a grocery store drops a bottle of vegetable oil on the floor, and it breaks. The store staff are in a rush and do not fully clean up the mess, leaving an oil slick. An elderly man slips on the oil and hits his head, suffering a brain bleed. Injuries like these happen across California every day. When we bring lawsuits for dangerous property, we not only fight for our injured clients, we also incentivize property owners to keep things safe in the future.
One of the challenges of premises liability cases is that the property owner’s insurance is quick to blame our client. In a case where our client trips on a raised sidewalk ledge, the insurance will argue that the sidewalk’s unevenness was open and obvious. We would fight to show that, as one example, shadows from tree limbs made the sidewalk edge hard to see. We might uncover evidence that the landowner had received complaints that the sidewalk was dangerous long before our client got hurt.
Our attorneys have successfully handled varied and complicated premises liability cases, from apartment fires to fights with city governments. We will dig deep into the facts of what happened to you and help you seek justice. Contact us to discuss your case with our Salinas and San Jose personal injury attorneys.