Did you or a loved have a slip and fall accident? Did you or someone you love suffer injuries as a result?
If so, click here or call (817) 329-9001 to contact The Francis Firm immediately to discuss your situation. Our firm can help you navigate your situation and attempt to recover the largest sum of money possible for your accident.
Slip and fall cases in Texas occur more often than you might think.
When restaurants or retail establishments fail to clean up liquid spills, or when property owners fail to warn guests or customers about torn carpeting or other flooring safety issues, a slip and fall can happen quickly and without warning.
While many older adults sustain particularly severe and life-threatening injuries in slips and
Indeed, children and young adults can also get hurt in slip and fall accidents. According to the National Floor Safety Institute(NFSI), falls leads to more than eight million visits to emergency departments every year, and there are more than one million slip and fall injuries identified at hospitals.
If you got hurt in a slip and fall accident in Texas, it is important to learn more about your options under the law. If you need assistance filing a claim, an experienced Texas slip and fall accident attorney can help.
f You Cannot Come to Us, We Can Come to You in BedfordSlip & Fall Cases Won in Texas by The Francis Firm
$206,545 – Premises Liability
An elderly lady was walking her dog in her neighborhood one morning when she fell because a neighbor’s home builder had removed the sidewalk and failed to mark or provide warning of its removal. Our client suffered an injury to her shoulder. The pre-trial offer in the case was $1,000. The jury awarded a verdict for our client in the amount of $206,545.
Premises Liability and Texas Slip and Fall Cases
Slip and fall claims are one type of premises liability lawsuit.
Premises liability is an area of the law that says property owners (or people in control of a property, such as property managers or renters) are responsible for making sure that the property does not pose unreasonable risks of customers or guests.
Property owners have a duty to identify and remedy any serious hazards on the property, or to warn people about those hazards if they cannot be repaired immediately.
When a person gets hurt in a slip and fall—also known as a slip, trip, and fall accident—the accident usually happens because of a hazard on the property.
For example, a liquid spill might not have been cleaned up, a piece of ripped flooring might have been left unrepaired, or a broken light may have been left unreplaced.
Examples of common slip, trip, and fall scenarios include but are not limited to the following:
- Drink spills at a restaurant and a customer slips and falls;
- Liquid spills in the aisle of a grocery store and a customer
slips and falls; - Retail store fails to clean up rainwater from umbrellas near the entrance and a guest slips and falls;
- Retail store customer slips and falls on a piece of torn carpeting or rough flooring;
- Retail store customer slips and falls on a staircase due to a faulty railing;
- Inadequate lighting outside a restaurant or retail establishment walkway leads to a slip and fall;
- A loose rug on a neighbor’s tile floor leads to a slip and fall;
- A friend or family member fails to repair a broken tile, leading to your slip and fall accident; or
- An employer fails to declutter a common employee walkway, leading to a trip and fall accident.
To be clear, slips, trips, and falls in Texas can occur in a variety of settings and under numerous different circumstances.
What is the Timetable for Filing a Slip and Fall Lawsuit in Texas?
If you are injured in a slip and fall, you should know that there is a deadline when it comes to bringing a lawsuit.
So how much time do you have to file a claim?
The Texas statute of limitations for most personal injury claims (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 16.003), including slips and falls, is two years from the date of the accident.
In other words, to be eligible to file a premises liability lawsuit for a slip and fall accident, you will need to file your claim within two years from the date of your slip and fall accident when you got hurt.
If you do not file a lawsuit within this two-year time window, then you may not be able to file a lawsuit at any point in the future. Once the clock on the statute of limitations has run out, the claim becomes “time barred.” Due to time running out, the plaintiff is barred from filing a claim.
How Can Comparative Fault Impact a Texas Slip and Fall Claim?
What happens if you are partially at fault for the slip and fall accident, but you believe the property owner is also at fault?
For example, if a property owner failed to clean up a spill, but you were wearing particularly slick shoes, can you still recover damages?
Texas law (Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code § 33.001) allows a plaintiff to obtain damages as long as she is 50 percent or less to blame. Then, her recovery is reduced by her percentage of fault.
However, once a plaintiff is considered to be 51 percent or more at fault, Texas law bars the plaintiff from recovery.
Contact an Experienced Texas Slip and Fall Accident Lawyer
Do you need help with your claim? A Texas slip and fall accident attorney can assist you.
Contact the Francis Firm today to begin working with an experienced personal injury lawyer on your case.
We offer free case evaluations.