Premises Liability

In Tennessee, the owner or operator of a property must use reasonable care to make the premises safe and to warn visitors of dangerous conditions. If you are injured because a property owner failed in this duty, you may be entitled to compensation for damages such as medical bills, lost wages and pain and suffering. This area of law is known as Premises Liability. Let our Knoxville premises liability lawyers take your case.

The Lawyers of Brown & Roberto are experienced Knoxville premises liability attorneys and work with clients throughout East Tennessee who have been injured or disabled due to property negligence. Premises liability extends to things like:

• Slip-and-fall accidents in stores and other public places
• Trip-and-fall accidents
• Falls on stairs due to missing or inadequate handrails or uneven steps
• Falls caused by inadequate lighting
• Assault injuries caused by negligent security
• Landlord liability for injuries caused by non-functioning locks, fire extinguishers or smoke detectors
• Parking lot injuries.

If you are injured on someone else’s property, it is important to contact an attorney as soon as possible to preserve evidence of liability. You may assume that a store owner will cover your medical bills after an accident, but this is often not the case. Without evidence of liability, the store owner is not likely to pay you anything.

By taking pictures of the accident scene, you can record the condition of the property at the time of the accident. It is important that you do this before property management corrects the dangerous condition. Evidence such as store videotapes must be preserved before they are recorded over.

The key to proving a case of premises liability is proving that the owner or operator knew or should have known about a dangerous condition on their property and what they did about that. The courts will weigh how foreseeable the danger is to the customers on the property against the alternatives that the owner or operator had. You must also prove that the Defendant was more than 50% at fault for causing your injuries. Our Knoxville premises lawyers have experience proving fault.

Many people think that they have a good case just because they slipped and fell at the grocery store on a slippery floor. Unfortunately, the case will depend in large part on how long that surface has been slippery. In Jones v. Publix Supermarket, Inc., No. M2018-01672-COA-R3-CV (Tenn. Ct. App. June 7, 2019), a Publix grocery store’s surveillance videos showed that a toddler spilled a clear substance on their floors. Two minutes later, a person is injured in a slip and fall accident. No employee saw the spill occur or would have seen the substance on the floor in that two-minute period. The case was dismissed because there was no way that Publix knew or should have known of the dangerous condition in that short period of time. Publix would have been negligent had one of their employees caused the dangerous condition or had the floor remained slippery for a longer period. This case shows why you need an experienced Knoxville premises attorney.

The case above also shows the importance of getting the surveillance footage. It is rare that the business owner or operator will give you the footage without a subpoena. To get a subpoena you will need a lawsuit filed.

If the surveillance ultimately exonerates the company, it may also show someone else to be at fault. Our Knoxville premises accident lawyers have been successful at finding others at fault for premises accidents. It is important to file any lawsuit necessary before the one-year statute of limitations. This means that if the surveillance footage might show someone else to be at fault for the accident, it is important to have the footage and file a lawsuit against that person within one year of the accident. In other words, call our Knoxville premises accident lawyers immediately after your accident to give time for this investigation.

If you have been injured on some else’s property contact the Lawyers of Brown and Roberto for a free consultation at (865) 691-2777.