Slipping or tripping and falling unexpectedly can and does lead to serious injuries for thousands of Towson residents every year. When it comes to filing suit over this kind of incident, though, the complex ways in which personal injury law and premises liability law interact can make achieving fair financial recovery a much more challenging endeavor than you might expect, especially if you have never been involved in civil litigation of any kind before.
Guidance from a Towson slip and fall lawyer could wind up being crucial not just to efficiently establishing fault for your injuries, but also to accurately valuating and effectively seeking compensation for damages stemming from those injuries. Unrepresented plaintiffs rarely find themselves on the winning side of these sorts of claims, so having a dedicated personal injury attorney’s assistance may be a virtual necessity if you want a good chance at getting the recovery you deserve.
When Are Landowners Liable for Slips and Falls?
Although property owners can bear responsibility for certain injuries sustained by property visitors, they are not automatically liable for every accident that occurs on their land. For example, Maryland state law imposes virtually no “duty of care”—an implicit legal obligation to act in a reasonable way in order to protect others from preventable harm—on landowners when it comes to preventing harm to trespassers, except that those owners cannot intentionally try to harm trespassers by attacking them or setting traps.
For lawful visitors, property owners have a responsibility to inspect their property with reasonable regularity and either warn lawful visitors of known hazards or fix those hazards within a reasonable period of time. This means that property owners may not be liable for slip and fall injuries caused by hazards they reasonably could not have known about, like a spill in a store aisle that occurred seconds before a customer slipped on it. A Towson trip and fall attorney could provide irreplaceable assistance with identifying potential grounds for litigation and helping to build a compelling case for compensation around them.
How State Law Could Inhibit Recovery Efforts
Maryland state courts adhere to an uncommonly harsh “pure contributory negligence” system when adjusting available compensation for plaintiffs who bear partial fault for their own damages. Under this system, any share of blame whatsoever for an accident completely disqualifies a plaintiff from recovering any money, even if someone else was still primarily at fault for their injuries.
On top of that, Maryland Code, Courts & Judicial Proceedings §3-2A-09 caps compensation for non-economic “pain and suffering” at $890,000 for virtually all causes of action that accrued after October 1, 2020, and MD Code, C&JP §5-101 limits prospective plaintiffs to just three years after their cause of action accrues to start the litigation process. Once again, support from a slip and fall lawyer in Towson may be essential to ensuring these and other legal roadblocks do not unfairly impede recovery.
Consider Working with a Towson Slip and Fall Attorney
Slip and fall litigation can be complicated even under the most favorable circumstances. If you want to maximize the chances that your case ends with a good outcome for you and your family, retaining a knowledgeable legal professional should be a top priority after seeking necessary medical attention.
Once hired, a dedicated Towson slip and fall lawyer could be the ally you might need to effectively seek the case result you want. Call today to schedule a meeting.
