Who would be responsible if the person that was renting a given property were to slip and fall, and, thus, get injured?
In order to bring a personal injury claim against the landlord, the victim would need to produce evidence of the landlord’s negligence.
The evidence would need to help with answering these questions —Did the landlord cause the condition that triggered the slip and fall incident? Landlords are supposed to maintain their properties. If poor maintenance had allowed creation of an unsafe/slippery area, then the victim would seem to have grounds for a lawsuit.
—Had any of the landlord’s actions addressed the problem that had aided creation of an accident-prone location? Had some of the landlord’s money been used to pay a contractor, someone that was supposed to fix the problem? If the answer to that question was “yes,” then the victim would not have grounds for initiating a personal injury lawsuit.
—Should the landlord have known about the unsafe condition? Landlords are supposed to conduct periodic checks on the condition of their properties. That would indicate that the proof of the landlord’s liability could be found in any absence of expected and scheduled checks.
Could the victim allege negligence, if the landlord had failed to clear a common area of all debris?
Landlords are not responsible for cleaning foreign substances from a common area. That rule applies to situations where the landlord’s messages have lacked any reference to the sort of condition that caused the slip and fall incident.
Means by which landlords could be notified about unsafe objects in a common area:
A renter calls the landlord’s office
A renter stops by the landlord’s office
One of renters sends an email to the landlord
A 3rd party has issued an alert, in order to create a notice of unsafe conditions in one of common areas in the landlord’s property as per Personal Injury Lawyers In Hayward.
What was the source of that same debris? If one of the landlord’s actions had aided introduction of the unsafe debris in a common area, then that fact would support any charge of liability that might have been made by the injured victim.
Of course, it could prove difficult to identify the person that had dropped some type of debris in the common area. Unless landlords have paid for installation of cameras in every area of each of their properties, no one could know for sure how any stray and unsafe item got into any specific spot.
That fact highlights the reason for the rule that landlords are not held responsible for clearing a common area of any foreign and potentially hazardous substances. That rule could remove needed support for any victim’s personal injury claim.
