Slip and Fall Lawyers in Denver, CO

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Slip and fall accidents can happen in many ways:

• The Denver area receives nearly 50 inches of snow annually. Homeowners must clear snow from their walkways. If they do not clear snow and ice in a reasonable amount of time, they must pay for your injuries if you slip on their walk. The same thing goes for residential complexes where the landlord has a legal obligation to clean the common areas.
• You can slip in the aisle of a grocery store such as King Soopers or Walmart. Employees or customers can drop and break a jar of liquid that spills onto the floor. If the store does not clean the damage in a reasonable amount of time or place warning signs, they can be liable.
• Parts of Denver (especially the Central Business District) seem like a constant construction zone – someone may leave debris on the sidewalk, and you may trip. City sidewalks can also be in poor shape, and the city can be liable for injuries when they do not keep the sidewalks in reasonable condition.
• Apartment landlords need to keep common areas and stairwells in good repair. Leaving equipment around or failing to fix broken banisters can cause falls.

Even though people think of slip and fall accidents as common, nothing is typical about your injuries. All it takes is a body part hitting against the ground or another hard object or a fall at an awkward angle to severely injure you.

People suffer significant injuries in falls, and some common slip and fall injuries include:

• Soft tissue injuries
• Neck and back injuries
• Traumatic brain injuries
• Broken bones
• Head injuries
• Spinal cord injuries

Approximately three million people need treatment in an emergency room every year because of fall injuries. These hospital visits can get expensive. Any time you are in the ER, you can expect a bill for thousands of dollars, and even with insurance, you may still have to pay a lot out of pocket. Also, these totals do not account for necessary future medical expenses you may incur.

Insurance Companies Make Your Life Harder

Insurance companies take a very skeptical view of slip and fall cases. They try to take advantage of the perception that these are common injuries to deny liability and reduce the size of your settlement check. Even though millions of people are injured in falls each year, it does nothing to get the property owner off the hook when they have been careless.

Notwithstanding the common refrain that accidents happen, they should not occur due to the property owner’s carelessness. Then, an accident becomes negligence, and you can recover financial compensation.

Nonetheless, the burden of proof falls on you, which makes slip and fall cases more complicated than the average personal injury case. You should not let the difficulty stop you from pursuing financial compensation, however. If someone else was responsible for your injury, they must pay you damages. When you are on someone else’s property, the property owners owe you a legal duty, regardless of whether they gave you a verbal invitation to be there.

Property owners can owe duties to others by:

• Having a public sidewalk in front of their homes
• Opening their store for business
• Owning an apartment complex that rents out residences
• Having facilities that the public can use

You may also hold a property owner liable if you visited their private property and suffered a fall injury.

When Someone Else Must Pay for Your Injuries

While the legal theory behind slip and fall cases sounds simple, it can be more difficult in practice.

There are two ways that you can hold a property owner or the person who controls the premises liable for your slip and fall injuries:

• If they create the dangerous conditions themselves, they are responsible no matter how long the condition existed before your injury.
• If someone else created a dangerous condition (for example, a customer breaks a jar with liquid), property owners have a reasonable amount of time to fix it or place a warning around it.

In every personal injury case, what is reasonable depends on the circumstances. In the second example, a property owner may claim that they did not know about the dangerous condition and could not fix it. However, only so much time can pass before they get treated as if they knew. Pretending not to know about something or just not checking the premises frequently enough are not excuses.

How to Prove that Someone Else Was Responsible for Your Fall

Nonetheless, you have quite a bit to prove in your slip and fall case. You can always count on an insurance company to deny liability unless you come with solid evidence in your claim. You will not get the benefit of the doubt.

The problem is that you can lose slip and fall evidence very quickly. Your best chances of proving liability come when you obtain:

• Pictures of the accident scene that show the property’s condition at the time you fell
• Eyewitness testimony from someone who saw the dangerous condition or your accident
• Maintenance logs that can indicate whether and when the property owner inspected the property
• Video camera footage, which may exist if you were injured in a business or a parking lot

The best form of evidence is when someone else sees what happened and can testify about it. The firsthand story from an objective third party goes a long way in making your claim more credible.

Gathering proof and presenting it to the insurance company or a court is no easy task. First, you may be dealing with injuries of your own that prevent you from taking an active role in your case. Second, the defendant may have possession of these sources of evidence, and they do not want to hand them over to you.

What to Do After a Slip and Fall Accident Injury

There are two essential things to do after being injured in a slip and fall accident. You must do both of them quickly before you lose valuable time.

The first thing is to see a doctor after your injury. Insurance companies are skeptical of these injuries. They may even claim that you are making up your condition and are not really hurt. Alternatively, they may argue that your injuries came from something other than the accident.

When you visit a doctor, you will get a medical diagnosis of your injuries. The closer it is to the actual accident, the more credible your claim is when you say you receive your injury in your fall.

Your second step is to hire an attorney to help you navigate the legal process. The longer you wait to hire an attorney and start the claims process, the more difficult it will be for you. In addition, waiting to hire an attorney will mean that you lose crucial evidence needed to prove your claim. Many personal injury lawyers work on a contingency fee basis, so you probably won’t have to pay any money upfront.

Without an attorney, you can end up with nothing or far less money when the insurer unfairly tries to blame you. Slip and fall cases are often as much about defending yourself as they are about proving someone else liable.

The Insurance Company Will Not Take You Seriously Without a Lawyer

When you approach an insurance company on your own in a slip and fall case, they will likely not take you seriously or honor your claim. In fact, they may try to place blame on you and ask you questions about the accident that can lead you into saying something that suggests you were responsible.

For instance, the insurer may claim that you were clumsy and the accident was your fault. Insurance companies use this as a common tactic to avoid paying for damages that their policyholders cause. Even if you are partially to blame for your accident, you can still recover financial compensation.

The insurer may also claim that the danger was open and obvious, and you should have seen it. This defense is another way they try to explain clear-cut negligence and point the finger at you.

You should never submit an injury claim or talk to the insurance company without first consulting a personal injury lawyer. An experienced Denver slip and fall attorney will understand Colorado’s premises liability laws and will understand how insurance companies operate to prevent them from using questionable defense tactics to avoid paying on your claim.

To increase your chances for success, you should retain an experienced Denver slip and fall attorney immediately after your accident and have them deal with the insurance company for you.

How an Attorney Helps Your Slip and Fall Case

When you hire a slip and fall attorney, they will:

• Speak with you and explain how you may obtain financial compensation for your injuries
• Gather the evidence necessary for you to meet your burden of proof
• Prepare and submit your claim to the insurance company or file your lawsuit in court
• Estimate the value of your damages so you have a starting point in negotiations
• Tell your side of the story and defend you when someone tries to blame you for your injuries
• Negotiate a settlement agreement or explain your damages to a jury

If your case goes to court, you will certainly need an attorney to file your premises liability lawsuit in civil court and handle all the legal processes and procedures involved. Before trial, your attorney will take part in discovery, which is where both sides request evidence and information from the opposing side to help build their cases. They will also gather witness testimony through depositions and interrogatories.

At trial, both your attorney and the defense’s attorney will examine and cross-examine witnesses to try and refute any witness testimony that damages their case. This means the defense will cross-examine you and try to poke holes in your story. However, your attorney will likely call medical experts and other specialists who can testify to the severity of your injuries and their causes. Your lawyer may also call you to the stand to testify about how your injuries have severely affected your life.

Your attorney’s job is to prove through evidence the defendant is liable for your injuries and present a compelling story as to how you have suffered greatly and needlessly because of someone else’s carelessness or negligence.

Having an attorney is vital to ensuring the insurance company takes you seriously, and a lawyer can send clear and assertive messages to the insurer that they honor their policies and pay you what you need and deserve to avoid going to court.

Denver Slip and Fall FAQs

Denver Slip and Fall Attorney, Eric Faddis

When you call Varner Faddis Elite Legal, LLC, you’ll talk to one of our Denver slip and fall accident attorneys – not a computer, assistant, or paralegal. Our founding partners dedicate their personal time and attention to each case, and we’re always here when you need us.

You’ll benefit from focused, results-oriented attorneys to help you get maximum compensation for your slip and fall case in Denver.

Contact us now for a free consultation.

Office

6025 South Quebec St.
Suite 100
Centennial, CO 80111
Phone: 720-710-9073