If you were injured on someone else’s property, establishing that they were at fault for it is easier said than done. That is, it may quickly turn into your word against theirs if you do not have concrete evidence to back up your claims. Without further ado, please read on to discover how to prove a property owner was negligent in your accident and how a seasoned Miami slip & fall lawyer at the Law Offices of Gonzalo Funes, PA, can help you execute this.
What are the four elements of negligence in a premises liability claim?
By its most basic definition, negligence is when an individual fails to act with reasonable care, and as a result, someone else gets injured. And when it comes to your premises liability claim, there are four elements of negligence that the property owner possessed in relation to your accident event. They read as follows:
- Duty of care: a property owner had a duty of care in ensuring that their premises were safe enough to welcome you as a visitor.
- Breach of duty: a property owner breached their duty of care by failing to identify or properly warn about potential hazards on their premises.
- Causation: you directly encountered a hazard in a way that was beyond your reasonable control and caused you to incur injuries.
- Damages: your serious bodily injuries resulted in significant economic and non-economic losses, like medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, etc.
How do I prove the four elements of a negligent property owner?
Firstly, you should prove that you were a welcome visitor on the premises, or else the property owner does not necessarily owe you a duty of care. This may be implied if you visited a retail store during its operating hours, or you had an appointment confirmation for an appointment at a doctor’s office, for example. If this were private property, you may have a text invitation from the owner or an email confirming you were employed to perform repair work.
You must then have clear-cut proof of the hazard that triggered your accident event. The best form of this is a photo or video of it taken in the immediate moments afterward, alongside photographic evidence of your visible injuries. This may be supplemented with eyewitness testimonies that confirm the spotting of the hazard.
To establish your interaction with the hazard, you should have requested that a property owner conduct an accident report on your behalf. If they are unwilling to cooperate, you may call law enforcement onto the scene. Here, you may give your statement and personal recount of events in a formal police report.
Lastly, you must make the correlation between your accident and injuries and your subsequent damages. That is, you may have medical bills that are recorded on the same date as your accident event. Also, a stoppage of direct deposit payments from your employer around this time indicates your inability to return to work.
There is no need to attempt to handle all this without legal assistance. So please pick up the phone and call a competent Miami-Dade County injury lawyer from the Law Offices of Gonzalo Funes, PA today. We look forward to hearing from you soon.
