Slips and falls
A fall on someone else’s property is a premises liability claim. The question is not whether you fell. It is whether the owner knew about the hazard, or should have, and left it there.
When a property owner is responsible
An owner who invites people onto the property has to keep it reasonably safe, warn of hazards it knows about, and fix a hazard within a reasonable time once it is found. Falls happen in every kind of building; the hazards we see most often are:
- wet floors
- loose or torn carpet
- uneven ground
- holes, or open manholes, without a warning
- broken sidewalks and driveways
- loose or missing handrails
- a step where no one expects one
What the claim has to show
Four things: that an unsafe condition existed and was not obvious; that the owner knew about it, or reasonably should have; that the owner did not fix it or warn you in time; and that it caused your injury. A spill that happened a minute before you fell is a harder case than a leak that had been reported for a week.
Missouri compares fault. If the owner says you were not looking, or were somewhere you should not have been, and an adjuster or a jury agrees, your recovery is reduced by your share. It is not, by itself, ended.
What to keep
- Photographs of the hazard and the scene, before it is cleaned up
- The shoes you were wearing, as they are
- The incident report, or a note of who you told and when
- The names and numbers of anyone who saw it
- Your medical records from the first visit on
Evidence
Stores often keep video for days, not months. Ask early.
What a claim can include
Depending on the facts: medical bills, lost wages and lost earning capacity, pain and suffering, and the other costs the fall caused.
What a claim can include depends on its facts. Nothing here predicts an outcome.
Also under personal injury
- Car accidents What to do first, what insurers cover, uninsured drivers, shared fault.
- Premises liability Hazards on someone else’s property, beyond a fall.
- Dog bites Missouri holds the owner responsible without proof that the dog was vicious.
- Personal injury What a claim has to show, what it can include, and how it moves.
Common questions
Questions we hear
I fell in a store. Is the store automatically responsible?
No. The owner is responsible for hazards it knew about, or should have known about, and did not fix or warn of. How long the hazard had been there, and who had noticed it, is usually the heart of the case.
There was a wet-floor sign. Does that end it?
A sign is a warning, and a warning is part of what the owner owes. It does not settle the question by itself: where the sign was, whether it could be seen, and whether the hazard extended beyond it all matter. It makes the case harder, not impossible.
Does it matter what shoes I was wearing?
The owner’s insurer will ask. Keep the shoes as they were, and let the question come to us.
I did not report it the day it happened. Is it too late?
Report it now, in writing, with the date and time it happened and who was there. A late report is weaker than a prompt one, but far better than none.
I was partly at fault. Do I still have a claim?
Usually. Missouri reduces a recovery by your share of the fault rather than barring the claim.
Related areas
Other areas of work
An injury at work, or in the line of duty, runs through a different system. Both are handled from the same office.
Contact · Kirkwood office
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