What Are Slip and Fall Lawsuits?
A slip and fall lawsuit is when a plaintiff seeks compensation in civil court for injuries sustained as the result of a slip and fall accident. For example, if a plaintiff is laid out for six months after slipping and falling on a patch of ice on the defendant’s premises, said individual can sue for their medical bills as well as the lost income in those six months.
To be successful, the plaintiff in a slip and fall lawsuit needs to prove that the defendant was responsible for their injuries in one of three manners. First, the defendant is responsible if said individual caused the slip and fall accident. Second, the defendant is responsible if said individual knew about the hazard that caused the slip and fall accident but did nothing about it. Finally, the defendant is responsible if a reasonable person in their place should have known about the hazard that caused the slip and fall accident.
Why Do Businesses Need to Protect Against Slip and Fall Lawsuits?
Whether businesses win or lose their slip and fall lawsuits, fighting them in civil court tends to be expensive and time-consuming. Furthermore, the process can be frustrating for the business owners, which tend to have a negative effect on their performance. As a result, slip and fall lawsuits are serious threats to small and even medium-sized businesses, particularly if they are already running on razor-thin margins.
How Can Good Maintenance Help?
If you own a business, you may be tempted to neglect the maintenance of your premises, particularly if you are going through a lean period at the moment. However, you should resume maintaining your premise as soon as you can because it is your best defense against slip and fall lawsuits as well as similar threats.
In short, so long as you are scheduling sweeping services and other maintenance for your premises on a regular basis, you are preventing the creation of hazards that can cause slip and fall accidents. In part, this is because you are slowing the rate of deterioration that is inherent to all material assets. However, it also helps that the people maintaining your premises will catch and correct potential issues before they can turn into genuine problems. This way, you make sure that you know about all of the hazards on your premises while also making sure that they are taken care of properly, thus protecting yourself from a slip and fall lawsuit that can seriously threaten your business’s wellbeing.
With that said, it is important to remember that even the best precautions can fail. When that happens, businesses need to be prepared by having purchased small business insurance beforehand. However, good maintenance can help even here because the smaller the chances of a slip and fall, the smaller the premiums that have to be paid for sufficient coverage.
Contact Us
Please contact us if you are in need of sweeping services and similar services with which to keep your premises well-maintained. Our teams are skilled and experienced, meaning that we can get you the results that you want in exchange for a fair and reasonable price.
