One of the responsibilities of business owners is to keep customers and employees safe. Slips and falls are common accidents that occur in various businesses, and they can result in injuries such as muscle sprains, fractures and head injuries.
Owners must take steps to prevent these accidents as best they can. If they do not, they could be liable for injuries that occur.
Prevention strategies
Not all slips and falls are preventable, but many of them are. Entrepreneurship Life discusses some of the steps business owners and employees should take to reduce the chances of accidents:
- Clean up spills or puddles of liquid as soon as possible
- Keep clutter and other hazards out of walkways and stairwells
- Safely tuck away and cover cords
- Display adequate signage to warn of existing hazards
- Clear snow and ice from sidewalks and parking lots
- Provide adequate lighting
There should be regular maintenance checks to identify potential hazards, such as a broken handrail. There should be a remedy of any situation as quickly as possible.
Elements necessary to prove liability
FindLaw discusses that to prove that a business owner is liable for injury, the injured party must be able to demonstrate fault. The party must prove that the owner caused the hazardous condition, that the owner knew about the condition and did not remedy it, or that the owner should have known about the hazard and fixed it within a reasonable period of time.
Some of the injuries that result from slipping and falling are true accidents. Sometimes, a judge will find both the owner and injured party to be partly responsible, and he or she will reduce the amount of money recovered.