Premises Liability - An Overview
In the law, the term "premises liability" refers to a situation where an individual is injured on property, or "premises" owned or maintained by someone else. The property owner or party responsible for maintaining the property may be held legally responsible, or "liable," for that person's injuries if the injuries were the result of a dangerous condition that existed on the property.
Property owners and businesses have a duty to provide a safe environment for people on their property and, if they fail to do so and someone is injured as a result, they may be held liable for the injured person's medical expenses, pain and suffering, and lost wages. A premises liability case might arise against owners not only of commercial property, but private residences, vacant lots, and many other types of properties.
Common Premises Liability Scenarios
Probably the most common type of premises liability situation is where someone slips or trips and falls due to some defect or hazard on another person's property. A classic example of this is where a shopper in a grocery store slips on a slippery or wet substance on the floor. If the grocery store knew or should have known about the substance, and failed to clean it up or warn shoppers about the substance, it might be liable for its negligence.
Other instances where premises liability might arise are when people trip on broken or cracked public sidewalks, trip and fall on stairs or escalators, or are trapped in burning buildings without adequate means of escape. A property owner might also be held liable if an individual is harmed by the criminal acts of a third person due to a lack of adequate security.
Two areas of growing public concern are injuries caused by dog attacks and injuries from exposures to toxic substances. If a dog on someone else's property injures someone, the dog owner and the property owner might be held liable, as long as the injured person didn't provoke the attack. Some states' laws require that the injured person show that the dog owner knew or should have known his/her dog would bite or attack, before he/she can be held liable, while other states impose "strict," or , liability on dog owners under "dogbite statutes," which hold dog owners liable for dog attacks regardless of whether they should have known their dog would attack someone.
When someone is injured due to exposure to a hazardous substance, a claim will often arise in the context of a workers' compensation claim, where a worker is exposed to a substance over a period of many years by virtue of the nature of his/her work or the facility in which he or she works. However, toxic exposure cases also arise in the residential context, such as where a home contains lead-based paint or asbestos.
Whatever the unsafe condition, it must have caused the injury at issue, and to recover against a property owner, the injured person cannot be at fault for his/her own injury.
Liability Rules
Traditionally, the law distinguished among four categories of people who might be on someone else's property: 1) invitees (for example, a delivery person); 2) social guests; 3) licensees (someone who is on the property solely for their own benefit); and, 4) trespassers (for example, a vandal), and the amount of care the property owner was required to exercise to protect a person from injury depended on how the person was categorized. Today, however, these distinctions have been abolished in many states, although in some states, trespassers are still in a separate category from "lawful" visitors. The courts in most states now hold property owners to the same standard with respect to everyone: a duty to exercise reasonable care in maintaining their property and to warn people of hazards. In most cases, an injured party must prove that the subject premises was in a "dangerous condition" when the injury occurred, and that the owner or possessor of the property knew of the dangerous condition. To constitute a dangerous condition, the premises defect must present an unreasonable risk to a person on the property, and it must have been a condition that the injured party should not have anticipated under the circumstances. The latter element indicates that people must be aware of, and avoid, obvious dangers.
In order to establish that a property owner or possessor knew of a dangerous condition, it must be shown that: 1) the owner created the condition; 2) the owner knew the condition existed and negligently failed to correct it; or, 3) the condition existed for such a length of time that the owner should have discovered and corrected it prior to the incident in question.
For a property owner or possessor to be held liable, it must have been foreseeable that his negligence would create the danger at issue. For instance, if a can of paint falls to the ground and spills into an aisle in a hardware store and, one day later, the store has not noticed or cleaned up the spill, and someone slips in the paint and is injured, one might argue it was foreseeable that the store's negligence in failing to inspect its aisles and clean up spills would result in someone slipping and injuring himself on a spilled item.
In sum, the following are circumstances in which a property owner might be held liable to someone injured on his or her property:
- If the owner fails to maintain the property, or creates a condition that may result in injury or damage to someone else's property;
- If the owner knows about a hazard and expects that people will come onto his or her property, but does not eliminate the hazard, erect barriers, or warn people about it;
- If the owner is not careful about hazards that might attract children;
- If the owner's actions (or inaction) may cause damage to his or her neighbors' property.
Responsible Parties
For someone to recover for an injury sustained on another's property, there must be a responsible party whose negligence caused the injury. This sounds obvious, but many people do not realize that some injuries are simply accidents caused, if anything, by their own carelessness. For instance, if someone falls simply because he was not looking where he was walking, he cannot recover against the property owner if the owner was in no way at fault, no matter how serious the injury. If an injured person is only partially at fault for his own injury, he might still be able to recover from another, but the dollar amount of his recovery might be reduced.
In premises liability cases, there are often a number of people or entities that may be held responsible for someone's injuries. For instance, if a business rents space from a property owner, both the property owner and the tenant (the business) may be named as defendants by someone injured on the property. In that case, the tenant is known as a possessor of the property, and has a duty to use reasonable care to prevent injury to those on the premises under its control. A possessor might also be a party who manages or maintains the property, such as a management company.
In residential settings as well, landlords may be held liable to tenants or third parties for injuries caused by dangerous or defective conditions on rental property. To hold a landlord responsible for an injury, a tenant must show:
- That the landlord had control over the problem that caused the injury;
- That repairing the problem would not have been unreasonably expensive or difficult;
- That a serious injury was the foreseeable consequence of not fixing the problem; and,
- That the landlord's failure to take reasonable steps to avoid the accident caused the tenant's injury.
When an injury occurs on property owned by a local, state, or federal government entity, special rules will apply, and it is important to consult an attorney to protect your rights. Specifically, there are very stringent notice requirements and broad immunity provisions that sometimes shield government entities from liability for injuries that occur on their property.
Recreational Use Statutes
In the 1970's, virtually all states enacted "recreational use statues," which were designed to encourage people to open their land for recreational uses, such as hunting, fishing, crosscountry skiing, or any other recreational activity, without the fear of liability. These statutes don't protect property owners who charge entry or usage fees, however, or who are malicious in their failure to warn of hazards that users would likely encounter on their property. For more information about such statutes in your state, contact a lawyer.
Pursuing a Premises Liability Claim
If you have been injured on someone else's property due to the fault of another, and are considering filing a claim against the responsible party(ies), there are certain procedural matters of which you should be aware, and which you should discuss with an attorney. First, every state has a "statute of limitations," which limits the amount of time one has to bring a personal injury action. The majority of states require that you file suit within three years from the date your "claim accrued," which is typically the date of the injury.
Importantly, if you were injured on public property, most states require that you give notice to the appropriate governmental entity, such as the city, within a very short time period, sometimes within as little as 30 days, from the date of injury. If you fail to give the appropriate notice or bring your legal action within the relevant timeframes, you might lose your ability to recover for your injuries altogether. Consequently, it is very important to contact an attorney as soon as you are injured to ensure that your rights are fully protected.
