How Do You Prove Liability in a Slip and Fall Case?

In a Las Vegas slip and fall case, a property owner is only liable for your injuries if there were on notice of the dangerous condition which caused your fall. Your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney therefore has to prove that the owner was on “notice” of the dangerous condition. How is this done? The best way of showing this, is by finding evidence of prior similar falls. This evidence is required, because your Las Vegas Personal Injury Lawyer has to show that the at fault party “knew or should have know” that what caused you to fall, was a known hazard.

One would think that the property owner would simply turn this evidence over. However, in your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney’s experience, the at fault parties fight tooth and nail before turning over any of this potentially damning evidence. What this means, is that your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney has to fight in court, to get a copy of this evidence. The good news, is that your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney has been successful in using the court process to get property owners to turn over documents of similar slip and falls.

Your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney argues to the court, that the at fault party is required to produce all reports of slips, trips, or falls, because the prior injury claims are relevant to establish that a “dangerous condition” existed.

Our Nevada Supreme Court has held that evidence of prior accidents may be properly admitted to show notice of a dangerous condition. Southern Pac. Co. v. Watkins, 83 Nev. 471, 483, 435 P.2d 498, 506, (1967). In addition, the Court stated that, although evidence of the type here in question is usually excluded where it relates to a temporary condition which might or might not exist from one day to the other, it may be admissible upon a proper showing that the conditions surrounding the prior occurrences have continued and persisted. Eldorado Club, Inc. v. Graff, 78 Nev. 507, 510, 377 P.2d 174, 176 (1962).

When you hire your Las Vegas Personal Injury Attorney, they will make sure to go over the process of establishing liability on the part of the property owner. 
 

Next time, we will talk about Diminished Value of your car after a car crash.