In Ashland, Kentucky
Visiting someone else's property shouldn't lead to injury. If you've been hurt, don't let compensation slip through your fingers. Work with an attorney who will fight to uphold your rights.
Liability, Damages, and Next Steps
Every property owner, whether it is a friend or a business owner you’ve never met, is obligated to provide a safe space for anyone they welcome onto their property. That is referred to as the duty of care, and when those owners breach that duty of care, they can be held liable for any injuries that occur on their property.
Making sure you get compensation for injuries that you’re entitled to requires the skills of an experienced Ashland premises liability lawyer. The attorneys at Peterson Law Office have an extensive understanding of Kentucky premises liability law and the sharpened negotiating skills to provide fierce advocacy for our clients who have suffered injuries on someone’s property.
Premises liability is a legal concept within tort law. That refers to a civil complaint where one person has caused harm to another.
In premises liability, the at-fault party is either the property owner or the tenant. The foundation of a premises liability claim is the idea that your injury happened because of a preventable hazard that the property owner knew about, or they should have known about, and they failed to address that hazard.
A premises liability accident can occur when there are any of the following unsafe conditions at a property:
A premises liability accident can also occur in a variety of places. Which of the following places did your injury occur at?
Here is a list of places where a premises liability accident can occur:
It is essential to document as much information as possible from the scene of your accident. If there is surveillance footage from security cameras of the incident, an experienced Ashland premises liability attorney will be able to help access and preserve that footage, which could prove crucial to your case.
To prevail in a premises liability claim, you must establish that you had a right to be on that property in the first place. That will be referred to as your legal status. Under Kentucky law, the duty of care a property owner owes to a visitor varies depending on that visitor’s legal status.
You would be one of the following visitor classifications:
An invitee is someone invited onto the property for any type of business transaction. Typically, this refers to a customer in a store or a contractor hired to perform work at a home or business. In Kentucky, a property owner owes the highest duty of care to invitees to maintain a safe environment.
It’s important to note that you don’t have to be directly “invited” onto a business to be an invitee.
The fact that the business is open to the public is the invitation.
A licensee is a person who enters the property with the owner’s permission but not for business reasons. This would apply most often to social guests. In these situations, you would need a direct invitation from the property owner.
In Kentucky, a property owner is obligated to warn licensees of any potentially known dangers. However, they aren’t required to inspect the property or repair conditions they’re unaware of.
Anyone who does not have permission to be on a property is considered a trespasser. With this type of “visitor,” the property owners owe no duty of care. The exception for a trespasser is the legal concept of “willful or wanton injury.” That means you can’t set a trap for a trespasser.
Another exception would fall under the “attractive nuisance” doctrine. This applies to children who might wander onto a property because of some attraction like a swimming pool or an abandoned car.
If the child is injured, the property owners can be held liable even if they didn’t invite the child onto the premises.
In a personal injury claim, the at-fault party rarely wants to accept responsibility, and an insurance company will try to deploy a variety of tactics to avoid paying a claim. The attorneys at Peterson Law Office will be fully prepared to meet these challenges head-on. Here are the defense tactics we’ll be ready for:
This defense asserts that a property owner is not liable for an injury because the dangerous condition was so obvious that any reasonable person would have seen and avoided it. That assumes a lot of facts not in evidence. For instance, just because it rains doesn’t automatically mean the floors in a store will be slippery. If they are, the store owner should mop them or put out a warning sign.
This argues that the injured person’s own careless actions contributed to the accident. For example, if you were wearing high-heeled shoes and tripped, the “shoe” could be blamed, not the loose flooring.
Fortunately, Kentucky is a pure comparative negligence state. That means even if you are partially to blame for the accident, you are still entitled to compensation. If applied to the shoe scenario, you could be partially to blame if your heels were too high, but the store owner can also be blamed for unsafe flooring.
This defense is used when the injured party knowingly and voluntarily accepted the risk of a dangerous condition. If you go on a roller coaster at an amusement park, you assume the risk of the ride giving you an upset stomach, but that doesn’t mean you’re responsible if the ride breaks down or causes injury.
You did not assume that risk.
A property owner can claim they did not know about the dangerous condition. It follows that if they were unaware, then they could not have taken steps to fix it. This tactic is commonly used in slip-and-fall accidents in grocery stores, where a spill causes the injury. If the spill occurred before the staff were alerted, that could be considered a lack of notice.
On the other hand, it is rare for a spill to occur without immediate notification of the situation.
Whether these defenses are raised during negotiations with the insurance company or by a defendant in a trial, the Peterson Law Office attorneys will be ready to challenge them.
A serious injury on someone else’s property can change your life in an instant. That accident can generate mounting medical bills and keep you from working. At Peterson Law Office, we understand how overwhelming that can feel. Our experienced premises liability attorneys fight to hold negligent property owners and businesses accountable when unsafe conditions lead to harm.
Whether you slipped and fell at a store, were injured at an apartment complex, or suffered a dog bite on private property, we’ll fight hard to secure the compensation you are entitled to.
Don’t wait to get the help you deserve. Contact Peterson Law Office today to schedule a free case evaluation with an experienced premises liability attorney.
Let our team handle the legal details so you can focus on your health and healing.
Lexington • Richmond • Winchester • Georgetown • Mt. Sterling • Somerset • London • Danville
If you have any questions about a potential personal injury claim, call us or fill out the form below to schedule a free, confidential case consultation.
(859) 469-6390
