Premises Liability

When an accident or injury occurs to a visitor or tenant living on another person's property, the owner of the property may be liable (legally responsible) if it can be proved that their negligence led to the injury. If you've suffered an injury of this type which you believe may be a result the negligence of another person, you may be able to file a lawsuit to recover the costs involved to pay for your medical bills, any lost earnings or other pain, disfigurement, emotional distress or permanent physical disability you have suffered.

Injuries on properties can include those from:

  • Slip and fall accidents
  • Trip and fall accidents
  • Constructive Notice
  • Dog bites or maulings
  • Unreasonable risk of harm
  • Owner liability over a known risk
  • Liability for repairs
  • Exposure to toxic or hazardous substances such as lead or mold
To better understand this principle of liability, it is important to understand who is liable when an injury takes place on someone else's or a company's property. According to the current Restatement of the Law in regards to Torts,

A possessor of land is
(a) a person who is in occupation of the land with intent to control it or
(b) a person who has been in occupation of land with intent to control it, if no other person has subsequently occupied it with intent to control it, or
(c) a person who is entitled to immediate occupation of the land, if no other person is in possession under Clauses (a) and (b).

This helps better define who is responsible for an injury that occurs. However, to understand if a court of law will hold this person responsible, the American Jurisprudence defines a liable individual as such

A landowner or occupier will not be liable, even to child invitees, for harm resulting from conditions which would prompt no anticipation of an unreasonable risk of such harm. However, it is not essential that the precise manner in which the child invitee's injuries might have occurred be foreseeable; it is sufficient if there is a reasonably generalized gamut of greater than ordinary danger of injury and the sustaining of the injury was within this range.

As a result, it is important to understand that, for example, should an individual fall in a grocery store, that employees specifically did not patrol or monitor the aisles or areas for the unsafe conditions which they should have foreseen and led to an accident. Similarly, if a property owner has a giant hole on their land and invite people to work on it without notifying them, a court of law will likely find that the owner had a duty to monitor the hole or at least notify people coming onto the property of the hole.

In cases involving premises liability, plaintiffs must prove that the property owners either failed to maintain the property or created unsafe conditions which caused the injury, knew about the unsafe hazard but didn't alert visitors or tenants to this fact, was not careful concerning unsafe conditions which might attract children, or took actions or neglected conditions that caused damage to a neighboring property.

If you believe you've suffered an injury due to a property owner's negligence in the Louisiana area, we'd like to hear from you. Call us 504-527-6225 or contact us online for a FREE consultation.