3 Slip and Fall Tips

If you are a little older, you might remember when the first cell phone came out. One of the biggest mistakes we see people make is running to social media and posting things that are contrary to the injuries that they’re claiming in their slip and fall case. There are some things that you don’t need to put out there. We understand that we’re very social beings and we have all this multimedia stuff. But we often tell clients that are personal injury clients, specifically slip and fall clients here in Arizona, it’s not wise to say everything across social media. At some point, that’s going to come up against you. The insurance company is going to go scrub your social media accounts. They’re going to go talk to people. They’re going to go look at the pictures of you playing basketball two days after you slipped and fell or going to the convenience store. They’re going to pile all this stuff up against you to minimize the value of your case and say, “Well, you really weren’t that hurt,” or, “You really weren’t hurt at all.”

Another mistake we see is people trying to heal and get back too fast when they’re still injured without consulting with their lawyer to make sure that it’s okay to return to normal activity. They settle their case and then three months later they have injuries again. They make you sign a release and a claim of liability. You can’t go back and take a second bite of the apple. You have to be careful of all of these things.

Have that candid talk with your lawyer when you call. Whichever lawyer will be dealing with your case will go over the do’s and don’ts about your slip and fall case so that you’re not making some of the common mistakes that most folks here in Arizona make.

An important area of personal injury law deals with slip and falls. They are not as common as car accidents, which seem like they happen every day, but they are more common than people imagine. You’re walking through a grocery store. There’s spilled milk on the aisle where the cartons of milk are, and fifteen people have walked by and no one has made any effort to clean up this spilled milk. You walk on it, you slip and fall, and that could be a problem. Or, there’s a nail in the floor. They’ve known it’s been there for the last three weeks. They haven’t taken the time to fix it. You walk over it, the heel of your shoe gets caught on it, and you slip and fall and break an elbow or break your femur. These are slip and fall cases. They happen quite often, although they are not as pronounced as car accidents are.

You want to make sure that you select an attorney that understands the theory of liability under slip and fall cases, which defines how folks that own property are to maintain their property and make sure that there are no known present dangers. You want to talk to an attorney that can walk through that analysis with you because it very well may not have been an accident that’s your fault. It may have been something that this company or property owner was supposed to fix and did not fix. So, first and foremost, you want to sit and talk with a lawyer.

Call our office. We’ll sit down and go over the facts of your case. There could be something there. Certainly you didn’t fall on your own, didn’t fall on purpose. Talk with one of our lawyers. Let’s find out what the theories of liability are and what the damages are so that your claims can be adequately pursued.

We recently received a call in our office, here in Phoenix, Arizona, regarding a slip and fall case. The individual on the other end of the phone was questioning how to select the best slip and fall attorneys. Obviously, we told them that they had called the right place, but we also still answered the question and told them, “There’s some things that you have to specifically look for with an attorney to represent your slip and fall case.”

Number one, you have to look for someone that has experience and understands the nature and the texture of personal injury law, specifically slip and fall cases. You also need someone who knows about the responsibilities of property owners and how they have to maintain their properties to care for those visitors that are entering and exiting their property. You need not only someone that has experience in that area, but someone that has success in that area. Everybody that has experience has not been successful— you want a reputable law firm, like Smith and Green, that has not only experience in that area but has had success in personal injury law, particularly slip and fall law.

Also, you want to select someone that has strong experience with trial lawyering, because trial lawyers look at cases very differently than transactional lawyers. Now, that is not to browbeat or blast our colleagues that are transactional lawyers, but a trial lawyer is going to look at the facts of this case and take it all the way into trial, making sure that all of the evidence is prepared if the insurance company does not act fairly with you. We can take this case all the way to trial, be successful and win, and get you what you deserve for the injuries that you have sustained as a result of your slip and fall.

Call our law office today. We’ll be more than willing to talk with you, go over the facts of your case, and make sure that we get the best possible outcome for you as it relates to the injuries that you have sustained.