PREMISES LIABILITY ATTORNEYS IN JACKSONVILLE

The term “premise liability” is a legal term that refers to the obligation of a landowner or occupier to assure that their property is safe, or in legal terms, they owe a “duty of care” to those who come onto their property for various reasons. Premises liability laws in Florida do not hold property owners automatically responsible for any injury that happens to take place on their property, but they do require property owners to correct conditions that could cause an injury.

Below is a closer look at how premises liability laws apply to different types of accidents and different visitors and how our premises liability attorneys in Jacksonville help our clients recover compensation for injuries and losses that occurred on someone else’s property.

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Under what circumstances were you on the property?

I was visiting a business. An “Invitee”.

An invitee is a person who is on a property that welcomes the public such as commercial businesses, government offices and public parks. These types of properties owe invitees the highest “duty of care”. They are responsible for maintaining safety measures and proper warnings of dangers or dangerous conditions and assuring a reasonably safe environment for visitors.

I was visiting a friend at their home. A “Licensee”.

A licensee is entitle to the same duty of care as invitees. Property owners must take the appropriate steps to assure a reasonably safe environment and or warn licensees of any unsafe conditions or areas.

I was approaching my neighbor’s front door for an unplanned visit. An “Uninvited Licensee”.

An uninvited licensee is afforded a lesser duty of care than an invitee or licensee. A person is considered to be an uninvited licensee when they were not specifically invited to be on the property but are allowed and not unwelcome. An example would be a neighbor who was walking their dog, drops its leash and has to come onto a neighbor’s property to retrieve their dog.

I was on a property with posted No Trespassing signs. A “Trespasser”.

A person who trespasses on property is owed a duty of care similar to an uninvited licensee. The property owner is not responsible for your safety if they did not invite you or did not know that you were on or in their private property or closed business.

Was what caused your injury foreseeable?

Foreseeability is a factor that our premises liability attorneys in Jacksonville give special attention to because it can have a significant effect on a premises liability injury claim. Foreseeability has to do with the property owner being aware of a danger on their property or their ability to anticipate a dangerous circumstance.

For example, if a property owner installs beautifully polished marble floor tile in their home’s front entryway, they could be held liable for a falling injury if they do not put down a door mat for visitors to dry their wet shoes on before they walk across the tile or warning visitors that the tile can be slippery. This would be considered a foreseeable potential injury.

Conversely, a property owner may not be found liable if an injury that took place on their property was not foreseeable. For example, a homeowner pays a garage door company to install a new garage door at their home and the next day the garage door unexpectedly closes on and injures their neighbor, (a licensee) because it was not installed properly. This would generally be considered an unforeseeable circumstance. Most would assume that a professionally installed garage door would operate safely and the homeowner would have no reason to anticipate or believe the newly installed garage door was dangerous.