Slips, Trips and Falls
Dansker & Aspromonte Associates are Slip, Trip and Fall Lawyers with Results Exceeding $100 Million in Damages.
Falls, either as a result of tripping, slipping or other reasons, are some of the most common types of accidents causing injuries in the metropolitan area. We at Dansker & Aspromonte have represented thousands of people injured in falls of all kinds.
A common misconception is that if someone falls in a building, the building owner and manager are automatically liable for all injuries sustained in the fall simply by virtue of the fact that they owned or operated the building. This is not the law.
In order to win a case such as this, one must prove that the building owner/manager was negligent, meaning that they failed to do something they should have done, or, did something that they should not have done and that act or failure to act was a substantial factor in causing that person's injuries. Often people will report to us that they slipped on wet stairs in a building. The law requires that we prove that the wet condition either was known to the super or owner of the building and they did nothing to clean it up or fix the cause of the wet stairs or that the condition existed for such a long time that the building management should have known about it and made the area safe in the exercise of reasonable care. Many times other tenants or visitors give eyewitness testimony that proves that the condition did in fact exist for long enough that the building staff should have known about it and this paves the way for our client's recovery for his or her injuries.
Probably the most common type of fall involves New York City sidewalks. Before 1980, anyone tripping on a broken sidewalk could sue the City simply by showing that the crack, hole or raised flag existed for a long time, and they would win.
In 1980, the City of New York enacted what has been referred to as the "Pothole law". It states that in order to bring a lawsuit against the City for potholes, broken, cracked or raised sidewalks, the City must have received written notice 15 days before the accident to give them an opportunity to fix it.
This was a difficult obstacle for lawyers representing injured people to hurdle. But we put our heads together and through the New York State Trial Lawyers Association, (Dansker and Aspromonte is an active member), we hired a surveying company to walk all the sidewalks and crosswalks in all five boroughs of New York City to mark all existing defects on maps which then were served upon the City and acted as prior written notice of those defects, allowing people to sue the City even though the City tried to prevent it.
Recent changes to the law have made adjacent landowners responsible for their sidewalks, except for one or two family homeowners. Other variables in fall cases include snow and ice, oil, debris and flowing water as well as broken steps and torn carpet.
Please feel free to call us to discuss the particular facts of your case.