Indiana Premises Liability Attorneys
Practice Areas
Premises Liability
An Indiana premises liability case deals with injuries suffered while on someone else's property. The property owner can be an individual, such as a homeowner, or a business. When you're a guest in an Indiana home or business, the property owner has a duty to keep the premises safe and warn visitors of possible dangers. In premises liability litigation, it is crucial to demonstrate that, had it not been for a property owner's negligence, your injury would not have occurred.
The most well-known example of an Indiana premises liability case relates to a "slip and fall," in which a condition or object on the ground causes someone to fall and suffer injury. Other premises liability cases include injuries to non-workers on construction sites, injuries from falling tree limbs or items falling from store shelves, injuries from backyard equipment such as pools and trampolines, and assault that could have been prevented if the property had adequate security.
In Indiana, property owners are not automatically liable if someone else is injured on their property. To demonstrate that a property owner's negligence caused an injury, the injured person must prove the following:
- There was a dangerous condition on the property;
- The property owner knew or should have known about the dangerous condition;
- The property owner had a "reasonable opportunity" to fix the dangerous condition or warn the injured person, but did not do so; and
- The condition was not "open and obvious" so that the injured party could have discovered it when the accident occurred.
Also, when someone is injured in a premises liability case in Indiana, the extent of the property owner's responsibility to that person may depend on what the injured person was doing on the property at the time of the accident. People injured in an Indiana slip and fall accident generally fall into one of three categories:
- Business invitees are people who are on the property for an economic purpose. They include shoppers and businesspeople providing services, such as when a plumber visits a restaurant to fix the restaurant's clogged toilet. Property owners must take every reasonable precaution to ensure the safety of business invitees.
- Social licensees are people who visit a property with permission, but not for an economic purpose. They include friends invited to one another's houses. Property owners must warn licensees of hidden dangers, but do not have to fix them.
- Trespassers are people who enter a property without the property owner's permission or without any other right to enter. If the trespasser is an adult, the property owner usually does not need to fix any hidden dangers or post warnings about them. However, if the property owner knows trespassers are likely to enter or deliberately makes hidden dangers worse to harm potential trespassers, he or she may still be liable. If the trespasser is a child, property owners may be liable if their property contains an "attractive nuisance," such as a swimming pool or trampoline, which attracts children and has a high likelihood of injuring them.
Contact an Indiana Slip and Fall Attorney
At Sevenish Law Firm, we take your premises liability claim seriously. We will assist you throughout your case and give you an honest appraisal of its likely outcome. Our knowledgeable Indiana personal injury attorneys will also fight aggressively to recover the maximum compensation available so that you can meet the expenses caused by your accident and move forward with your life. Sevenish Law Firm practices law with integrity, honor, and compassion, and we strictly follow the rules of ethics for our profession. For a free case evaluation, call the experienced Indiana personal injury attorneys at Sevenish Law Firm today at 800.278.9200.
