Lancaster Slip & Fall Lawyer
Board-Certified Trial Specialist Helping Fall Victims Recover Compensation from Negligent Property Owners in Southeastern Pennsylvania
Fall injuries can be painful, serious and long-lasting, and they can even be fatal. Often a fall happens because of some dangerous condition that the property owner neglected to fix or even provide a warning about. In these cases, the property owner may be liable to the fall victim for the cost of medical bills, lost income due to time missed from work, pain and suffering, and other legal damages recognized by Pennsylvania personal injury law. Lancaster slip & fall lawyer John P. Stengel is a board-certified civil trial specialist who is experienced in all kinds of personal injury cases, including slips, trips and falls on dangerous property. Read below about premises liability law in Pennsylvania, and contact the law office of John P. Stengel if you have been injured in a fall on somebody else’s property.
Property Owner’s Duty Depends on Status of Injury Victim
Under Pennsylvania premises liability law, the duty that the property owner owes to persons on the property differs depending on whether the victim was an invitee, a licensee, or a trespasser on the property. These terms and the duties that go with them are explained below:
Invitee – As the name implies, an invitee is someone who is invited onto the property by the owner, usually because this will benefit the property owner. Examples include public invitees, such as customers, and business visitors, who are conducting business for the benefit of the property owner. The property owner’s duty to invitees is to maintain the premises in a reasonably safe condition. Property owners are liable for injuries caused by hazards they knew about or should have known about, yet failed to protect the invitee from.
Licensee – A licensee is typically someone who enters the premises for the licensee’s own business, such as a salesperson. Social guests are also typically considered licensees. The duty of the property owner toward licensees is to warn them about any existing dangers that the owner knows about and that are not obvious to the licensee.
Trespasser – A trespasser is someone on the property who does not have a legal right to be there. In general, a property owner does not owe any duty toward a trespasser and is not liable if a trespasser is injured on the premises. However, a property owner cannot do something to intentionally injure a trespasser, such as setting harmful traps.
Fall Cases can be Difficult to Prove
There are often many challenging aspects of fall cases that can make them difficult to prove against the property owner. For instance, it may be necessary to prove that the property owner either created the dangerous condition, knew about it, or should have known about it. This often requires the plaintiff’s attorney to prove not only how the hazard was created but also how long it was there before the accident occurred. With 25 years of experience handling personal injury matters, attorney John P. Stengel knows how to overcome these challenges and prove that the property owner was unreasonable or negligent in failing to repair or warn about a dangerous condition in order to prevent the fall.
Property owners may also try to claim that the condition was obvious, or that the accident victim was negligent in not watching where he or she was going. Pinning the blame on the accident victim can lead to a reduction in the amount of compensation awarded, and it may even keep the victim from any recovery at all. As a board-certified specialist in civil trial law, John Stengel fights hard to keep his clients from being unfairly blamed for any portion of the accident which wasn’t their fault.
Help is Available after a Serious Fall Injury in Lancaster or Southeastern Pennsylvania
If you have been injured in southeastern Pennsylvania due to a fall on someone else’s dangerous property, because they failed to keep the premises safe or warn you about the danger, call Lancaster slip & fall lawyer John P. Stengel at 717-290-7971 for a free consultation on your claims. You only pay a fee if we recover compensation on your behalf.
