Property Owner Responsibilities

Property owners are responsible for keeping their property safe so visitors do not injure themselves. When an individual slips and falls because of the owner’s negligence in maintaining the property, this is known as a slip and fall accident. Examples of slip and fall accidents include a guest tripping on ripped carpet, slipping on a puddle of water, or falling down stairs because there is no handrail. As long as the property owner knew about the hazardous conditions but failed to do anything about it, he can be held liable. In fact, owners can even be held liable if they should have known about the hazardous conditions, but didn’t.

Each state has its own set of slip and fall laws, however these laws do not cover accidents that occur on federal government property. Although there are many variations of the law, in general, the legal definition of a slip and fall states an owner is liable when his negligence causes an accident that was “reasonably foreseeable.” This term means under the circumstances, a reasonable person would have been able to predict an accident could occur because of the unsafe conditions.