If you are a Connecticut resident who receives an injury this winter as the result of falling on someone else’s property, you may wish to consider suing the property owner to recover money damages for your injury. FindLaw explains that a slip-and-fall accident is one in which you sustain an injury as the result of such things as the following:
- Slipping on a wet floor, icy sidewalk, etc.
- Tripping on a torn carpet, broken sidewalk, etc.
- Falling over debris or down some stairs because of poor lighting, etc.
Proving responsible party
The first thing you must prove in a slip-and-fall case is who was at fault for your injury. The responsible person will be different depending on whether your accident occurred on private property, commercial property or governmental property.
In private and commercial property cases, the property owner usually is the responsible party. However, it could be a landlord, a tenant or someone else who had control of the property. Proving fault in a governmental property case can be the most difficult of all since many governmental entities are immune from personal injury suits.
Proving fault
Whoever the responsible party may have been, you also must prove that he or she knew or should have known about the dangerous property condition that caused you to slip or trip and fall. Usually you prove fault in one of the three following ways:
- The responsible party created the condition.
- The responsible party knew about the condition, but did not fix it or negligently failed to sufficiently fix it.
- The condition existed long enough that the responsible party should have known about it and fixed it before you fell.
This is general information given only to educate. It is not intended to provide legal advice.