The spectrum of slip and fall accidents is broad. Whether you take a tumble at the grocery store or break a bone tripping on a dangerous sidewalk, your incident falls under slip-and fall’s umbrella, meaning that you may be entitled to legal action. You can work with experienced professionals like the slip and fall accident attorneys in New Haven to initiate the legal process.
Injured CT can specifically help you secure compensation for a slip and fall accident that stemmed from someone else’s negligence. Our New Haven personal injury lawyers can take your case to court or help you negotiate for the slip and fall settlement. We can investigate your losses and defend your claim while you focus on recovering.
How Quickly do You Need to Act After a Slip and Fall Accident?
It’s in your best interest to take legal action shortly after a slip and fall accident. There are several benefits to immediately pursuing a case. The sooner you act, the more seriously a court may take your injuries when you move to elaborate on them in either negotiations or before a judge.
What’s more, you’re investigating the nature of your slip and fall accident on a time limit. General Statutes of Connecticut section 52-584 allows slip and fall accident survivors to take no more than two years to bring forward evidence of negligence’s role in their accident. If you miss that deadline, you lose your right to legal action.
How Can You Take Action After a Slip and Fall Accident?
If you want to take legal action against a liable party after a slip-and-fall accident, you need to work with a New Haven slip-and-fall attorney to file a civil claim against an offending party. That claim needs to identify a liable party, total the value of your case, and present a court with evidence defending your right to legal action.
Discuss Your Role on Someone Else’s Property
The role you played on someone else’s property does have an influence over your right to post-accident compensation. If you operated as an invitee or a licensee, a property owner owes you a comprehensive duty of care. Trespassers, comparatively, do not receive that kind of protection and thus may not have the right to a civil case if injured in a slip and fall accident.
Only children who trespass on another person’s property have a right to legal protection, and even then, that protection is situational. The attractive nuisance doctrine dictates that property owners with known attractions on their land must make an effort to maintain that land, or else said owners may be liable for a trespassing child’s injuries.
How Can You Prove Negligence in a Slip and Fall Accident?
If you want to prove your right to a slip and fall case, you need to bring forward evidence indicating that another party:
- Owed you a duty of care
- Violated that duty of care intentionally or through an act of unknowing negligence
- Caused you economic distress or harm as a result of their negligence
You cannot base a slip-and-fall accident claim on a gut feeling or pre-existing bias. Fortunately, an attorney can help you bring forward the hard data that you can then build a claim upon. That data can range from bystanders’ recollections of your fall to video footage of the accident.
What Compensation Can You Receive from a Slip and Fall Lawsuit?
Slip and fall accidents may entitle you to a range of damages that, in turn, can address your non-economic and economic losses. You can work with a New Haven, CT, slip and fall accident lawyer to determine which forms of compensation you qualify for, what the sum total of that compensation may be, and what methods through which you can request that support.
The range of damages that a slip and fall accident may entitle you to include:
Note that you must have evidence to prove that these losses stemmed from a slip and fall accident and accurately reflect an inherent economic value if you want to include them in your lawsuit. You can turn to our attorneys for help gathering the evidence that can most effectively defend your right to the financial support you need to recover.
Can You Be Held Partially Liable for a Slip and Fall Accident?
You can be held partially liable for a slip and fall accident, provided that the at-fault party can successfully argue that you contributed to your own losses. Connecticut boasts a modified understanding of comparative negligence. That understanding dictates that you must be less than 51% liable for your losses if you want to demand compensation in civil court.
For example, say you’re set to receive $10,000 in damages after a slip and fall accident. However, the at-fault party argues that you contributed 10% of the fault to your own accident. Instead of that $10,000, you’ll receive $9,000, with the court denying you the final $1,000 to compensate for your alleged fault.
Both you and an attorney can refer to C.G.S.A. § 52-572(h) for more information on how the state’s interpretation of modified comparative negligence might impact your future settlement.
Let’s Discuss Your Right to Slip and Fall Action Today
Injured CT represents survivors like you who’ve had their right to personal safety compromised by someone else’s negligence. You don’t have to let your accident go unaddressed. You can reach out to our slip-and-fall accident lawyers in New Haven instead and secure the representation you deserve before taking your case to civil court.
Injured CT advocates for your right to compensation for the losses you endured in a slip and fall accident. You can schedule a case evaluation with our attorneys in New Haven and beyond today to learn more about the legal process and how you can use it to your advantage. Contact us through our website or by calling Injured CT’s office ASAP.