Bakersfield Premises Liability Lawyer
You may wonder about your remedies when you are hurt on someone else’s property. You may have a premises liability claim if your injury is due to the property owner’s negligence. Whether the property owner will be responsible for your injuries depends on whether they fulfilled their duty of care to keep their property safe for others. Having a duty of care means property owners are required to ensure their property is safe for legal visitors and sometimes even for trespassers.
If you were injured because a property owner breached their duty of care, you might be entitled to damages related to those injuries, which you can pursue with help from a knowledgeable personal injury attorney. Generally, property owners must fix known hazards on their property. However, the law also takes a reasonable approach, recognizing that people cannot immediately remedy hazards. In many situations, property owners can fulfill their duty by adequately warning people of the hazards. A Bakersfield premises liability lawyer could help you find out more about these claims.
Types of Visitors to Property
Determining whether a property owner has a duty of care for a person depends on whether the visitor was on the property legally or illegally. Business invitees, social guests, and people legally on the property to fulfill other duties all deserve protection, or at least a warning, about potential hazards.
Trespassers are people illegally on the property. Generally, a property owner’s duty to trespassers is limited to refraining from intentionally harming them. However, if there is an attractive nuisance on the property, the property owner may have a higher duty to some visitors, particularly children. Our premises liability lawyers in Bakersfield can help individuals understand the duty of care in particular circumstances.
Who Owes Visitors a Duty of Care
In premises liability cases, people often talk about property owners. However, property owners may not be the ones who control the actual property. They could have delegated control to property managers, leased the property to tenants, or arranged for someone else to safely maintain the property. These agreements will not necessarily relieve the property owner of their duty. Still, they can complicate a premise liability claim because it introduces third parties.
Determining whether someone owed visitors a duty of care requires examining the property owner’s degree of control over the property, their awareness or potential awareness of the hazard, the frequency of visitors, the risk of serious injury, and whether the owner could have promptly taken steps to prevent the harm. Typically, the more relevant factors there are, the more probable it is that the court will determine the property owner had a duty of care. Conversely, if only one or two factors are present, the court might decide that no duty existed, which would rule out the possibility of a premises liability claim.
Common Premises Liability Claims
Three of the most common premises liability claims handled by our lawyers in Bakersfield are slip-and-fall accidents, animal bites, and negligent security claims. Slip-and-falls look at the physical condition of the property. Animal bites look at whether a person had a pet that bit someone. Negligent security claims look at security measures. These three types of cases highlight the complexities of the duty of care. A property must be safe on all fronts, not just one.
Talk to a Bakersfield Premises Liability Lawyer
Sustaining an injury on someone else’s property can get complicated very quickly. Generally, a property owner must be negligent to be financially responsible for an injury. Negligence requires breaching a duty of reasonable care as it relates to hazards around the property. When that negligence exists, you may be entitled to compensatory damages that cover economic and non-economic losses.
Fortunately, most premise liability claims are covered by insurance. Having a lawyer to negotiate with their insurer can help the process go more smoothly and preserve relationships if you were injured on a family member’s property. For more details, schedule a consultation with a Bakersfield premises liability lawyer.
