Other Types of Premises Liability

When people think of premises liability cases, they often think only of trip and falls or slip and falls.  Responsibility for someone’s injuries on property can go far beyond those two types of claims. Property owners have a duty to people on their premises.  That duty is very broad in terms of the dangers to which it applies.

Here are a few of the “other” types of premises liability claims we’ve handled:

Dog Bites

Our client was a guest at someone’s home. Unknown to her but known to the homeowner, the dog that lived there was sometimes aggressive. The dog came into the room where our client was and acted friendly. Our client reached out to pet the dog, and it bit her hand.  She had to be hospitalized with an infection.  The bite and infection caused permanent nerve damage in her hand.

Inadequate Security/Knowledge of Danger

Our client was a guest at a friend’s apartment. He saw several young men shooting at his friend’s car with a BB gun. Our client told them to stop and then went into his friend’s apartment. When he came back out he was attacked by the group of young men, resulting in several broken bones. We found through police reports that the apartment complex knew that there were groups of young men that were harassing people outside the apartments, but the complex did not hire security or take any other steps to adequately protect tenants and their guests.

Dangerous Condition/Staircase

Our client was walking down a staircase when some of the treads fell, causing her body to fall down the rest of the staircase to the landing, severely injuring her back. The owner claimed the stair treads were not dangerous, but we tracked down the company that designed the house.  Their employee testified that the staircase was not constructed the way it should have been.

Proving knowledge of the dangerous condition

Any dangerous condition that causes injury may give rise to a claim against the property owner. The key is the property owner’s knowledge of the dangerous condition. Many times property owners will deny knowledge of a dangerous condition.  In fact, all of the owners in the above cases denied having knowledge of the dangerous condition.

If you are injured on premises by a dangerous condition, don’t assume that you are out of luck just because the owner denies knowledge of the condition. In almost every premises liability case we take, we are able to prove through investigation that the owners in fact had actual or constructive knowledge of the condition.  As a result, our clients are often entitled to recover.

Have More Questions

In my next blog I will discuss actual and constructive knowledge in more detail.  If you have questions, you can always take a look at our Questions and Answers page.  Also, our attorneys are glad to talk to you to answer your questions.  Setting up a free consultation with one of them to get your personal injury questions answered is easy.  Simply call the phone number or complete the “Need Help” form on the right side of this page.