While a slip-and-fall accident can happen to anyone, New York’s elderly residents are often the victims of slip-and-fall accidents. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, when an elderly person falls, their chance of falling again doubles.
Additionally, emergency departments treat over 3 million elderly people per year for fall injuries, and over 800,000 of these patients are hospitalized. Injuries from falls are typically serious since many involve a head injury, fractures or broken bones.
Falls can happen anywhere
There are various causes of falls among older people, many of which involve negligence from another person. Falls can occur in grocery or retail stores, on slippery sidewalks or roads or in any other public place.
Property owners have a legal duty to provide safe conditions for visitors or guests on their property. This means they must clean up puddles, shovel or treat icy conditions, remove clutter and take any other precautions to reduce the risk of a slip and fall accident that causes injuries.
Many falls are caused by negligence
When property owners fail to provide safe conditions, causing someone to fall and sustain injuries, they could be found negligent. If you are injured after falling while on someone else’s property, you may receive compensation for your injuries for a personal injury claim for negligence.
Proving negligence in court is challenging. You must file your claim within the statute of limitations and establish that the property owner knew about the conditions that caused you to fall and did not make any attempt to fix them.
Potential defenses by property owners
You must also prove that the property owner had enough time to fix the dangerous conditions. For example, if you slip on a puddle in a grocery store, but evidence shows the puddle had only been there for 2 minutes and the grocery store staff did not have enough time to wipe it up, the store might have a successful defense to negligence.
Each negligence case is different and decided based on the specific circumstances involved. Elderly victims could benefit from advice tailored to their situation.