Premises Liability

File a Premises Liability Lawsuit With Our Help

What Is Premises Liability in Florida?

If you suffered an injury while visiting someone else’s land, home, or business, you might have a right to damages. But did you know that your right to damages heavily depends on why you were visiting another person’s property? Florida’s premises liability law determines when and how parties injured on someone else’s property have a right to recover damages from the property owner.

General Elements of Many Personal Injury Cases

In many cases, an injured party’s ability to win a personal injury claim depends on proving the following four factors:

The defendant owed the injured party a duty of care/obligation to protect them
The defendant breached their duty of care to the injured party
The injured party suffered harm and
The defendant’s breach caused the injured party’s harm

All the above elements are important in a personal injury case. However, a huge focus in a premises liability case is what kind of duty a property owner owed you.

The Duty a Property Owner Owes You

There are generally five kinds of injured parties in civil lawsuits against property owners:

Invitees
Licensees by invitation
Uninvited licensees

Adult trespassers, and
Trespassers who are children

Where you fit within these categories determines the extent of a property owner’s responsibility to protect you from harm. We have outlined below what these categories are and the duty property owners owe to each category.

Protection for Invitees and Licensees by Invitation

Invitees are people who visit a property because it’s open to the public for the specific reason they’re visiting or they have been invited to the property to conduct business with the property owner. Licensees by invitation are social guests that the property owner invites to the premises. The invitation you receive as an invitee or licensee can be expressed or implied.

Invitees and licensees by invitation are owed basically the same duty of care from a property owner. If you’re harmed on someone’s property while you’re there as an invitee or licensee by invitation, you could have a right to damages if the property owner didn’t do the following:

Keep the property reasonably safe
Fix dangerous conditions on the property and
Warn you about dangerous conditions on the property that weren’t obvious

The property owner has a duty to protect you

Against non-obvious dangers that they know about or should know about. For example, If someone invites you to their home or business and you slip and fall on their wet floor, the property owner could be liable for not drying the floor before you came or not warning you about the wetness.

As an invitee or an invited licensee on someone else’s property, you could be exposed to many falling hazards. Slips and falls are common causes of injuries across the country. In fact, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report that in 2015, people incurred more than $50 billion dollars in medical costs from fall injuries. If you fall on someone else’s property, you don’t always have to shoulder the cost of the aftermath alone. Speak to an experienced attorney about your legal options.

Protection for Uninvited Licensees and Adult Trespassers

Uninvited licensees are people who weren’t invited to the premises but are legally allowed on the premises for their own purposes (e.g., someone who enters a restaurant to use the bathroom, but doesn’t buy food). Trespassers are people who are illegally on someone else’s property. Even though these people didn’t receive an invitation to the property, they have limited rights to protection from harm.

In many cases

An uninvited licensee or trespasser might not have a powerful case against a property owner if they trip and fall. But, an uninvited licensee or trespasser could have a strong personal injury case against a property owner if the property owner willfully or wantonly caused them harm. A common example of causing willful or wanton harm is setting a hidden trap on the property to hurt anyone who enters without permission. And if a property owner knows uninvited licensees or trespassers are present, they must warn them about non-obvious, known dangers.

Protection for Trespassers Who Are Children

While many trespassers have rights to the bare bones of protection from property owners, children have a few more rights. In addition to prohibiting willful or wanton harm, the law requires that property owners guard children against dangerous conditions on the property that “attract” them. The law calls these “attractive nuisances.”

A property owner could be liable for harming a child with an attractive nuisance if:

The property owner knew or should have known children were likely to trespass where there was a dangerous condition
The child came onto the property because of the dangerous condition on the property
The child was too young to understand the danger of the condition
The property owner knew or should have known that the dangerous condition posed an unreasonable risk of serious harm to children
The dangerous condition had little benefit to the property owner in comparison to its risk to children and
The property owner didn’t take reasonable steps to protect children from the danger

Things like deep-freeze lockers and abandoned washing machines are examples of potential attractive nuisances.

Determining what kind of visitor you were

To someone’s property when you got hurt can depend on a lot of unique details. You don’t want to sell your visitor status short in a personal injury case, so it’s best to speak to a skilled premises attorney who can argue for the maximum protection warranted in your case.

Our Attorneys Are Here to Fight for You

If you suffered an injury on someone else’s property and you need a premises liability lawyer in south Florida or Miami, we have what you’re looking for. Our experienced personal injury attorneys at Lady Law Group are skilled, compassionate, and diligent. While we work to get you a fair settlement or win your case in court, we also go the extra mile to support your needs in the interim. Contact us online or call us today for the protection you need in difficult times.