Liability of Retail Stores and Other Businesses

Retail stores and businesses such as restaurants, commercial traffic centers, and offices have larger numbers of customers and employees entering and leaving their property to shop, work, eat, and conduct daily business.  As a result of so much foot traffic, slip and fall injuries are common in these types of locations.  If you or a loved one has been I injured in a retail store or other type of business, the owner may be liable for your injuries.  Contact an experiences personal injury attorney to discuss your legal rights.

Duty to Customers

People who enter retail stores and business are classified as invitees because they are there for the economic benefit of the business owner.  Under common law, the owner has an elevated duty to care for and make their property safe for their customers.  The storeowner must use reasonable care in their daily operation of their business.  Also, the owner must warn customers of non-obvious, dangerous situations which are known to the owner and make reasonable inspections of their property in order to discover dangerous conditions and must them fix such conditions.  If a dangerous condition is so obvious that the customer should see it, there is no need to warn of such a condition.

In order to establish a slip and fall case at a retail store or business, a victim must establish that there was a substance on the floor which cause them to slip, resulting in an injury.  In addition, the owner must have either caused the substance on the floor or had knowledge of the substance and should have cleaned it up in a reasonable timeframe.

Knowledge of the Dangerous Condition

As stated above, in order to be held liable, an owner must have known or should have known of a spill or dangerous condition.  In some cases the owner actually causes the dangerous condition.  In this type of case the owner is said to have “actual knowledge” of the condition.  When this is the case, the adequacy of clean up or warning and the amount of time it takes to fix the dangerous condition become signification factors when determining an owner’s negligence.

When a retail store or business owner should have known about a spill and thus taken steps to clean up the dangerous situation, the following factors become relevant:

• How the dangerous substance looked at the time of the accident, such as being partially dry
• Any evidence that customers have often dropped similar substances in the same area
• Any evidence the retail store or business did not perform reasonable inspections
• Any evidence that employees could see or know about the substance prior to any accident

A retail store or business owner can also be held liable for a slip and fall injury if the substance on the floor was there for a long enough period of time to allow the owner to have “constructive notice.”  A victim can establish constructive notice by showing that the dangerous condition existed long enough that if the owner had used reasonable care when operating the business, they should have know about the hazardous condition.

So what happens when a store or business owner claims that they had no knowledge of a dangerous situation that lead to a slip and fall injury?  This assertion by the owner occurs often, especially in places such as grocery store where slips occur often and many people may encounter a hazardous situation.  In this case several factors come into play.  You may be entitled to monetary damages in this situation if the owner failed in their duty to conduct reasonable inspections of the business.  Also, employees may have noticed the dangerous condition and failed to report it to anyone else.  Many factors can have an effect on the duty of a store owner to keep his business free of dangerous conditions.  Don’t assume that because the owner did not know about the condition that you have no case.

Conclusion

If you have suffered a slip and fall injury while in a retail store, shopping mall, office, or other place of business, you should contact a California personal injury attorney about your legal rights.  You may be entitled to collect monetary damages to help pay your medical bills and ease your pain and suffering.  Contact a San Diego slip and fall attorney for your free consultation today. The Law Office of Howard Alan Kitay serves all of San Diego County and there are no fees until you collect your settlement.

• Overview
• Frequently asked questions
• Common causes of slip and fall accidents
• Liability of retail stores and other businesses
• Duties to entrants owned by landowners and occupiers
• Slip and fall accidents involving snow or ice